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J 


THE STRANGE 
STORY OF 
WILLIAM HYDE 

BY 

PATRICK and TERENCE CASEY 



NEW YORK 


Hearst’s International Library Co. 
1916 



Copyright, 1916, by 

Hearst’s International Library Co., Inc. 


/ 


All rights reserved, including the translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 


/C - ? 



• / ^ 

M,A,R 25 1916 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 

©CI.A427463 


/ 

t/ 


OUR MOTHER 













CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I I Meet with Mr. William Hyde and His 
Parrot, Mogul — and then Meet with 
Them Again i 


II Wherein I am Introduced to My First 
Remittance Man, and Hear from the 
Shell-and-Pea Fakir Something of the 



Jallan Batoe 

12 

III 

An Account of What Happened in the 
Fo’c’s’le 

23 

IV 

Of an Insane Venture among Jungles and 
Tunnels, which Led Hyde into the 
Jallan Batoe 

32 

V 

Relates how Hyde was Received by the 
Poonan, and More Particularly by the 
Golden-Haired Poa-Poa Bearer . 

41 

VI 

About Divers Things, but Mostly About 
the Nature of a Roof for the Night . 

50 

VII 

After What Manner Hyde Found Him- 
self a Prisoner in the Elephant Stone . 

61 

VIII 

Of the First Fluttering of Love, and of a 
Golden Woman whose Eyes were Evil 

68 

IX 

Tells Why Hyde Learned to Fear the 
High Priestess, Ltp-Plak-Tengga 

77 

X 

In which Wonder Piles upon Wonder’s 
Head, Until I Flear of that Greatest 
Wonder of All — the Stone Dobo . 

93 


V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

XI How Hyde Came to See Treasure, Gor- 
geous and Prodigious, and Found 
That Which is the Awe of Man . 105 

XII A Digression Concerning the Green, ^ 
Green God, by which Hyde Halts 
His Story, and All of which the 
Reader may Skip, if He Dares . . 116 

XIII “ They came and they sapped, they fired 

and they slew. 

Trussed up their loot and were 

gone!” 125 

— Ancient Persian Poet 

XIV Wherein Hyde Fears He has Lost Eter- 

nally the Marshal Queen, Golden 
Feather of Flame . . . .140 

XV Of the Sending of the Sword . .144 

XVI And of the Sin of the Poonan . .150 

XVII In What Manner Hyde Fulfilled the 

Sending of the Sword . . *159 

XVIII Relates how Hyde Won Eternally the 
Marshal Queen, and then Looked 
Back over His Shoulder . . .167 

XIX In which Lip-Plak-Tengga Pleads and 

Promises 182 

XX More Account of What Happened in 

the Avenue of Palms . . . .195 

XXI Wherein Hyde Waits in the Elephant 

Cave, and There Comes to Him a 
Woman 203 

XXII How Terror Entered the Elephant Cave 216 

XXIII Tells in What Wise Hyde Made Use of 

the Rattan Cords About the Basket . 223 


CONTENTS 


vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIV How Hyde Answered a Grave Question 230 

XXV Of the Venture Through the Poppy 

Fields and the Whispering Bamboo . 238 

XXVI After What Manner Hyde and His 

Bride Awaited the Dark . . . 250 

XXVII How Hyde Saw that which was Abroad 

in the Night . . . . 265 

XXVI 1 1 When the Poonan Rose . . . .278 

XXIX And how Hyde at Last Came to Close 
Quarters with that which was Abroad 
in the Night . . . . .291 

XXX Of What Happened Outside . . . 301 

XXXI In which Everything Ends in the 
Fo’c’s’le, when We Learn the Rea- 
son for Mogul, the Parrot . . .312 



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THE STRANGE STORY 
OF WILLIAM HYDE 


CHAPTER I 

I MEET WITH MR. WILLIAM HYDE 
AND HIS PARROT, MOGUL— AND 
THEN MEET WITH THEM AGAIN 

Many tall ships have nosed out of Frisco Port 
and walked down the old sea-roads to the South 
Islands and found good cargoes there ; and some- 
times there, too, they have found that which all 
young, lean-thighed, quick-blooded men desire 
more even than they desire the love of woman and 
which they call by the name. Adventure. There 
was a ship In the Island trade, the S. S. Fairhaven, 
that put the Farallones in its white wake, upon a 
time ; and with It, below in the hold and smeared 
with oil and sweat, I, Colum Kildare, went as an 
oiler. I was raw at the work; I was awkward in 
the world; I was but lately quit of college. I was 
young. In a word, and Adventure lured me. 

Adventure lured me more than did books — 
Adventure and all the flamboyant creatures of 
Adventure : the tropics-bitten sailormen, the yellow 
and black and brown dwellers In the grass huts 
beneath the drooping palms, the laughing dusky 


2 THE STRANGE STORY 

girls with flowers in their hair, the barefooted 
white men who walk the burning beaches — the 
whole colorful pageant that forever streams past 
in the wet warm places of the world. And it was 
in Honolulu, the haven after the long traverse, 
that I met with my first creature of Adventure, my 
first white man of the beaches — it was in Hono- 
lulu that I first met with the shell-and-pea man, 
William Hyde. 

He stood in the middle of King Street before 
the colossal gilt-mantled statue of Kamehameha 
the Great. The day, approaching its noon, was 
unspeakably hot. And full in the white wash of 
sun he stood, and he wore neither hat nor 
shirt. A thick red beard — a beard so preposter- 
ously red it was almost the color of blood — ringed 
like a ludicrous dog-collar his saffron moon of a 
face. On his deep chest was moistly pasted a 
gorilla-mat of flaming hairs. And cocking it- 
self upon his stark sun-saffroned shoulder was 
a red-eyed parrot — one intense shimmer of 
green. 

Before him clustered a living horseshoe of 
black-and-tans. He was making padre-mystery 
for that semicircle of Hawaiians and Chinese, Por- 
tuguese, Japanese and hapa-haole. On the up- 
ended box before him were three halves of walnut 
shell, worn smooth by much handling. Also, the 
familiar rubber pellet. It was a shell-and-pea 
game. 

I approached along the line of iron paling which 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


3 

incloses the vast lawn and the hau and palm trees 
of the Capitol, formerly the palace of Queen 
Liliuokalani. I leaned against that fence and 
watched. I could see Hyde easily above those 
black-and-tans. Inches over six feet tall, huge- 
limbed as a jungle tree, he appeared gigantic. 
His stark shoulders reached high above the medal- 
lions on the pedestal behind him; the towering 
figure of a king above, in comparison did not 
dwarf him; he was another king. 

I saw the great veined hairy hands of Hyde 
shift the half shells — ^I saw the pea, the while, go 
back to the crook in his middle finger with a 
bunglingness that was yet too much for the black- 
and-tans. A steady dribble of cash tinkled into 
the flask, broken at the fat of the neck and pend- 
ent by a string from the edge of the upended box. 
All the time, from out the depths of that red dog- 
collar of beard, the big fellow singsonged con- 
tinually the incanting rigmarole of the shell-and- 
pea man : 

“ You play-um. I pay-um. No pilikea; no 
trouble. Very simple. There they go, three in a 
row. Ah-ah-ee ! The pea, the elusive little pea. 
Him shellee catchum pea. Wiki, wiki; quick, 
quick ! What shellee catchum pea ? 

Then, as he shifted and shifted the half shells 
and waited for some brown finger to point out and 
wager on a certain half shell when, all the while, 
the pea was reposing in the crook of his middle 
finger, he went on: 


4 


THE STRANGE STORY 

“ Went Jallan Batoe. Went round and round 
and up the Barito to the Jallan Batoe. And then 
some, then some, bee-lieve me ! Saw the red, red 
rubies in the Robe of Holies. In the Jallan Batoe. 
Saw the rubies and the diamonds and the pearls 
and the emeralds in the Jallan Batoe. And the 
God, the Green, Green God! And then some, 
bee-lieve me — cluck, cluck! ” 

The last was a clucking of tongue striking 
palate that is indescribable. It sounded metallic 
in the dead heat. It seemed an exclamatory con- 
clusion to his half-incoherent rigmarole, like a 
“ presto ! ” 

“What shellee catchum pea? No, no. Him 
shellee no catchum pea. See? You pay-um. 
Sabe?” 

And so on and so on. His shell-and-pea man’s 
patter was a steady rataplan of Hawaiian and 
pidgin-English words. It was incessant. But not 
again did he repeat that odd rhythmic hodgepodge 
about the Jallan Batoe. 

The black-and-tans were like children drawn 
hither by the blare of a hurdy-gurdy. They came 
scurrying from all directions — from South King 
Street, from Punchbowl Street and, nearer hand, 
from out the cool porticoes of the Opera House 
on the left and the Territorial Judiciary Building 
just behind the statue of Kamehameha. And 
they were a hurly-burly of races — young Hawaiian 
boys with their perpetual smile, sleek Japanese 
girls in brilliant kimonos, obis and short white 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 5 

socks, old and withered Chinese, and Portuguese 
of a blunt-nosed stupid type. 

All watched wide-eyed, but only the Chinese — 
those born gamblers — ^took a fling. The game was 
altogether one-sided, for Hyde cheated them re- 
morselessly out of all that was staked. After a 
little, even the Chinese left off playing; the tinkling 
of money dribbling Into the broken flask grew 
fainter, stopped utterly, and in vain, then, Hyde 
conjured them. He spat disgustedly, put his huge 
hands to his hips and contemptuously swung his 
crisp blue eyes around the horseshoe. 

And thereupon, as he put his hands to his hips, 
I noticed that which I had not noticed before. 
On his naked belly, plainly marked In the yellow 
of his tropics-bitten skin, were two groups of long 
scars, old and blue and dirty, and strangely hor- 
rible. They lay to either side of his umbilicus. 
They were almost exactly alike In length and 
form, color, and position. Indeed, they were as 
evenly balanced as a tattooed design. 

But they were no tattooed design. I counted 
those scars. Those scars were four on either 
side of his middle; and now, as Hyde swung 
about on his heels the better and more contempt- 
uously to survey that cluster of black-and-tans, I 
noticed, furrowing his back on each side of his 
spine, another dirty old scar. There were five 
scars on either side of his waist then — as many 
scars as a man has fingers and thumbs. 

And they were enormous scars. Hyde had put 


6 THE STRANGE STORY 

his hands to his hips just below those scars; his 
hands were spread out to their full finger stretch; 
and his hands were huge hands. But they did not 
nearly reach to the ends of those scars. Those 
scars were like marks made by enormous preter- 
human hands. 

How he had come by those scars, of course I 
did not know; but instantly upoi:i my brains ap- 
pulsed the most hideous and revolting of thoughts. 
I thought of tortures, nameless tortures, uncouth 
nasty tortures; for, oddly, those old scars, mon- 
strous as they were, minded me of enormous 
hands that clutch and gripe a man at the middle, 
that tighten like steel pincers, like the talons of 
a bird and, sinking through shirt and skin and 
flesh, tear at the meat of the abdomen, tear open 
the belly and disembowel a man, laying his en- 
trails bare and dripping to the day. It was an 
unspeakable thought. 

Hyde scooped up the halves of the walnut shell, 
bent down, drew up the flask by its string as one 
would draw up a ship’s bucket dangling overside 
by a rope, and emptied the contents of that broken 
flask into one huge paw. He swung his flaming 
dog-collar of beard, then, into the hooked beak of 
that emerald parrot on his shoulder. 

“ Now we catchum grand big Kanaka drink, 
Mogul — cluck, cluck! ” he said with that inde- 
scribable noise with which he had concluded his 
half-incoherent rigmarole about the Jallan Batoe. 
And he turned about and, followed by a few 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


7 

ragamuffin Japanese and hapa-haole boys, the par- 
rot swaying upon his naked shoulder, he moved 
largely along the makai side of King Street toward 
the beach. 

Now, a week after this incident, the tramp 
Fairhaven drew up its mudhooks from Honolulu 
Harbor and steamed, after the manner of trad- 
ers, among the Eight Isles of Hawaii. On the 
kona coast of wild Kauai, we made into a bay 
where there were two islands and a mountain be- 
hind the shore. Near the water’s edge of the 
smaller of the two islands, on the eye or wind- 
ward shore toward us, was a single monkey-pod 
tree, gnarled and branched like an algaroba 
tree and bearing some twenty feet above the 
ground a perfect parasol of small, dull-pink 
flowers. 

We put into this quiet bay, I remember, to take 
aboard a score or more head of horses from the 
Kaweila (Lightning) Plantation. The horses, 
marked with a lightning streak on the flank, were 
stalled in rude railed boxes on the main deck 
amidship, just abaft the cabin. The work done, I 
stood at the starboard rail as the sun sunk and 
watched the crew, off on leave, make the beach in 
the ship’s yawl. 

I saw the men divide on shore. Many wore 
yellow-flannel shirts; many wore no shirts at all. 
I saw them flounder up the sparkling shingle beach 
and disappear into the little white houses that 
clung like swallows’ nests to the green slope of 


8 THE STRANGE STORY 

the mountain. And I remember I thought not of 
the empty glamour of Adventure now, but of 
broken men who descend to shell-and-pea games 
in the Tropics and carry frightful scars upon their 
bodies and parrots, green as emerald, upon their 
stark saffron shoulders. 

From a little white house far up the mountain- 
slope came, of a sudden, an angry shout like the 
bellow of a bull, then the chatter of many shrill 
voices. I saw a man rush out of the house fol- 
lowed by many pattering, piping Japanese women 
— a big red-haired fellow with a green parrot 
swaying on his naked shoulder as he ran. 

“ The shell-and-pea fakir ! ” I breathed. 

The man came racing down the slope, the pat- 
tering Japanese women following with quick tiny 
steps, and shrilling wildly. From the little white 
houses came more women — Hawaiian, Japanese 
and Chinese — and some men. I saw some of the 
yellow-flannel shirts of the members of the crew. 
It was a mob. 

Just then, in the monkey-pod tree on the small 
island, arose another great commotion. I saw 
the tree shake its pink pamsol, and a number of 
snow-white koae birds whirred up into the air. 
A man had jumped down from a bough under 
the pink parasol to the ground. He was garbed 
only in a lava-lava, a white cotton cloth which 
bound his loins and hips. He looked like a native ; 
he was lean-thighed and brown as any Hawaiian. 
He crawled out to the water’s edge and, hand 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


9 

shading his eyes, gazed toward the commotion 
on shore. 

Hyde waded out into the water and, the green 
parrot still clutching his shoulder, came swim- 
ming hand over hand toward the ship. But the 
parrot was getting doused. On the sudden, it 
screamed, fluttered up into the air and then alight- 
ed on the man’s red head. The mob took up that 
scream with ringing shouts and scattered along 
the beach. Some of the yellow-flannels of the 
crew commandeered the ship’s yawl and fell to 
shoving its nose off the sand. 

Then from the islet came a resounding flapj 
louder than the nervous chatter of the women 
along the shore. The man in the cotton lava-lava 
had lifted a board, taller than himself, from the 
grass and had fallen with it upon the corrugated 
bosom of the bay. I knew it for a surf-board. 
He lay outstretched upon it, his feet kicking the 
water at one end, his hands paddling on either 
side of the board, dog-fashion. 

A great shout went up from the beach; the 
yellow-flannels left off trying to launch the yawl; 
all watched the man in the lava-lava. They 
thought he was about to head Hyde off. But he, 
too, was making straight for the ship and far from 
trying to head Hyde off, he seemed to be trying 
to escape from Hyde. His hands dipped and 
scooped furiously; his feet worked like those of 
a squirrel on a treadwheel. I saw, as he quickly 
drew nearer, that the instep of his feet gleamed 


10 


THE STRANGE STORY 


whiter than the shingle beach. I knew thereat 
that he was a white man. 

Back on the beach the mob still waited, won- 
dering what would happen when the two reached 
the ship. The surf-board bumped, head-on, 
against our stemplates and hand over hand, spry 
as a spider, the man came up the anchor-chain. 
Leaning over the rail, I saw that he was quite a 
young man, tall, of goodly size and of wiry frame. 
The hair on his bared head was black; it clung 
to his scalp in little wavy curls that shone like 
oily jade in the sun. As his head appeared above 
the rail, he looked aft toward me with a pair of 
smoldering gray eyes. 

“ Hello, kid,” he greeted. “ Don’t mind me. 
Just let me get rid of this red-haired fellow and 
I’ll tell you all about it.” 

He swung one brown leg over the rail. Below, 
the surf-board continued to flap against the chain; 
above, he remained at the hawse-hole, looking 
toward the approaching Hyde, the water glisten- 
ing on his brown legs and steaming up in the sun 
from the cotton lava-lava about his middle. The 
muscles on those brown legs from knee to ankle 
were visible as cords ; his eyes, when he had looked 
at me, had smoldered with a certain anger and 
fear; and it struck me, suddenly, that he was tensed 
as though for a struggle. 

I ran forward hastily. Hyde had come along- 
side and the chain was swaying now under his 
climbing weight. The man in the cotton lava- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


II 


lava bent far over the rail, brushed the parrot 
off Hyde’s red head and grasped Hyde by his 
slippery shoulders. The parrot gyrated in the air 
on wet wings and screamed stridently; the mob 
ashore cheered lustily; Hyde shouted: 

“ What’s the matter? Let go, you fool! ” 

“ I won’t go back! ” shouted the fellow in the 
cotton lava-lava. “ Damn you. I’ll see you over- 
board before I go back ! ” 

I crowded along the rail against the man’s 
straining arms. Those arms were straining at 
Hyde’s shoulders to make him loosen his grip of 
the chain and pitch into the water below. I got a 
glimpse of Hyde’s red-bearded face — a bloody 
moon of anger and passion. Then I looked into 
the gray eyes of the other. 

“ There’s some mistake ! ” I shouted breath- 
lessly — I shouted to make myself heard above 
the grating screams of the parrot. “ He doesn’t 
want you. He’s running away — he’s running 
away, too I ” 


12 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER II 

WHEREIN I AM INTRODUCED TO MY 
FIRST REMITTANCE MAN, AND 
HEAR FROM THE SHELL-AND-PEA 
FAKIR SOMETHING OF THE JALLAN 
BATOE 

The man in the cotton lava-lava released his 
grip on Hyde’s shoulders, stepped back a pace and, 
his jaw slack, looked from me to Hyde in amaze- 
ment. 

“ Running away, too ! ” he repeated as though 
incredulous. “ Why, I thought ” 

In a kind of helpless bewilderment, he eyed 
Hyde from the frayed ends of his clinging trousers 
to the hideous scars in his middle, and from the 
hideous scars in his middle to the unkempt top of 
his red head, as that big fellow clambered, drip- 
ping wet, over the rail. Then, as the parrot 
settled down once more on Hyde’s slippery shoul- 
der and began preening its wet greenness, ruffled 
by the brushing hands of the man, he stepped 
toward Hyde, his right hand extended, his gray 
eyes sparkling in the sun. 

Aloha, malahini!^* he said cheerily in Ha- 
waiian. “ Welcome, stranger. And excuse me 
for that rumpus just now; but I thought — why, I 
thought you were after me! God knows, I don’t 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


13 


want to go back to that miserable plantation ’’ 

Hyde interrupted, laughing deep and rum- 
blingly in his red beard. 

“ That’s a good one ! ” he exclaimed, with- 
drawing his hand from the other’s grasp to slap 
his wet thigh. Me after you! And I thinking 
you were trying to head me off ! ” 

“But what’s the lay, stranger?” asked the 
younger man. “ Why are all these people after 
you ? ” And he pointed toward the shore. 

Here, on the shore, the mob was scattering. 
They had tired of straining their eyes through 
the sunlight in an attempt to watch the surpris- 
ing and friendly pantomime on the deck. They 
were disappointed in the outcome of the chase, 
though not too greatly disappointed; they ap- 
peared to be almost relieved to let Hyde go; for 
I heard little trilly laughing sounds from the 
clusters of kimonos and white holukus and great 
chuckling roars from the whisky-thickened chests 
of the yellow-flannels of the crew, as men and 
women trudged up the beach and slope, and dis- 
appeared into the little white houses. 

“ Shell-and-pea game,” explained Hyde dryly. 
“ They discovered the pea in the crook of my 
middle finger. I barely got out of that tea house 
alive. Yes, siree; had a regular cat fight with 
those Japanese women, I did. Is my beard all 
there ? ” And he laughed loudly. “ But tell me,” 
he added: “what was all your rumpus about? 
What are you running away from?” 


14 


THE STRANGE STORY 

‘‘ Debt,” returned the younger man. ‘‘ I was a 
luna — ^that is, a foreman — on the Kaweila Planta- 
tion. Got into debt for my food and clothes to 
the company. They always fix it that way ; it’s the 
only way they can hold the whites on this Para- 
dise of the Pacific. Pay you a lot of money as 
wages, but they know you will gamble it all away 
on chuck-a-luck, fantan or Che Fa.” 

“ Do you mean,” I asked, ‘‘ that the company 
would hold you here for debt? ” 

“ Exactly,” said the man In the cotton lava- 
lava. “ That’s a sort of law here and all through 
the Eight Isles. I’m In debt and they won’t let 
me leave Kauai until I’ve worked and paid up ; but 
I know only too well that the longer I stay here 
In this lonesome hole, the deeper and deeper In 
debt I’d become. They fix It that way, I tell you ! 
I know. I’ve been here on Kauai for six months, 
and oh, I’m sick of it ! ” 

The sun-sparkle in his gray eyes went sud- 
denly dull. 

“ When I heard as a luna that you were coming 
for twenty-six head of horses, I left Kaweila and 
came around the foot of the mountain to the 
village. When you nosed In here yesterday, I 
floated out on a surf-board last night to Makal 
Island — that’s the little Island nearest us and the 
sea. I watched you derrick those horses aboard 
to-day — and here I am.” 

“Well,” said I, “come below and we’ll all 
have a drink on it. I’ve got some better stuff 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


15 

than they sell on shore — and that’s the very rea- 
son why I didn’t bother to go ashore.” 

“ Fine ! ” said the runaway debtor. “ I’ve been 
living so long on okolehao and the ferment of ava 
root, I’ve forgotten what real high-proof whisky 
tastes like.” 

“ Same here,” said Hyde. “ I’ve had nothing 
but swipes since I landed on these islands.” He 
twisted his head round and spoke to the shimmer- 
ing emerald bird on his shoulder. “ Now we 
catchum grand big American drink, Mogul — 
cluck, cluck! he said, with that concluding in- 
describable noise of tongue striking palate. 

As we entered the hatchway to the fo’c’s’le, I 
said, “ My name is Kildare — Colum Kildare.” 

Above me on the iron ladder, the debtor 
laughed merrily. 

“ There’s enough brogue in that name to start 
a fight, eh, stranger?” — to Hyde behind him. 
Then to me : “ But I’m glad to know you, Colum 
boy, honestly. You can call me Fitzhamon. 
That’s Irish enough, surely, isn’t it? ” 

“Fitzhamon?” Hyde repeated questioningly, 
ere I could answer. “ Not of the Fitzhamons of 
Kerry — the Fitzhamons of the Reeks? You don’t 
happen to be any kin of Lord ” 

“ No, no,” the man in the lava-lava cut in 
(quite hastily, I thought). “ Not at all.” 

He stood beside me at the foot of the ladder, 
looking up ; and Hyde, stepping quickly down the 
ladder, peered intently into his face. In the light 


1 6 THE STRANGE STORY 

from the hatch above, now, his face seemed 
strangely pale beneath its tan. 

“ Come to consider it,” said Hyde slowly, “ you 
do look somewhat like the Honorable Sarsfield 
Pembroke Fitzhamon.” He nodded his red head 
deliberately, sagely. “ Yes; very like.” 

Fitzhamon laughed — a little nervous laugh. 

“ Oh, come,” he said. “ Lords and Honor- 
ables, that sort of thing, is neither here nor there. 
All I know is I’m on the beach. Left Kaweila 
without a penny, without a shift to my back, even. 
I’m on the beach, I tell you, man, till I get some 
money which is awaiting me at Pnum Penh.” 

There was food for thought in Fitzhamon’s 
statement. I looked at the man, I remember, with 
an added interest. He was my first remittance 
man. 

“ Well,” I said, as I laid out a pair of dun- 
garees to clothe the man’s nakedness and an extra 
large pair to relieve Hyde of his wet trousers — 
“ well, we touch near Saigon on our way to Aus- 
tralia with these horses. From Saigon it’s only 
a run, I believe, up the Dubequem River to Pnum 
Penh in Cambodia. Which means, Mr. Fitz- 
hamon,” I added with a smile, “ that if you’ll 
work for your passage — play the workaway, you 
know — I’ll see the chief engineer and try for a 
job for you. Meanwhile, you’ll have to lay low.” 

Aole poina oe!** he admonished airily. 
“ Don’t forget, now.” 

I did not mean to forget. There was some- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 17 

thing about the man — the smile of his lean jaws, 
the sun-sparkle in his gray eyes, the toss of his 
curl-crop of head — something that delighted my 
youth and magnetized it to him. He looked, in- 
deed, with his close curling hair not so much like a 
Greek hero, as, I would imagine, like Brian Boru 
must have looked, long ago, in the bogs and misty 
reeks of Ireland. 

The men seated themselves on the edge of the 
ground tier of iron bunks. I produced from my 
locker a flask of good whisky and unscrewed the 
metal cap. Hyde gulped half the contents down 
without a word, then passed it to Fitzhamon. 
Hyde had no more than made that indescribable 
clucking, as he wiped his lips, than Fitz had 
finished the flask. I produced another. Outside, 
the day was deepening into dusk, purple and op- 
pressive. Inside, between the rows of double- 
decked bunks and in a closeness of heat that caused 
the, parrot on Hyde’s shoulder to nod with sleepy 
heaviness, we sat and sweated and drank whisky. 

Suddenly Hyde began singing : 

My name is JVillyum Hyde, Willyum Hyde — 
My name is fVillyum Hy-y-de, 

And Fm off to claim my hrui-de, 

And Fll get the God bee-si-i-de, 

For Willyum Hyde! 

Perhaps it was because he was given to swing- 
ing out his name, now and anon; perhaps it was 


1 8 THE STRANGE STORY 

because of a rolling note which remained over 
from his singsongy rigmarole; but at any rate, 
every time Hyde mouthed his name he lingered 
every time, with a kind of fondness, over the last 
syllable of his baptismal name, like a child show- 
ing its pleasure over bread and jam, like a child 
cuddling each mouthful under the tongue — 
“ Will-yum Hyde, Will-yum Hyde ! ’’ And there 
was that, besides, in the drawling rise and fall of 
the song, but particularly in the mention of the 
God, which reminded me, vividly, of Hyde’s rig- 
marole in Honolulu. 

“ This Jallan Batoe gibberish, Hyde,” I asked — 
“ what does it mean? ” 

Hyde paused so sharply in his repetition of 
the song that the very tune seemed to have been 
sucked down his throat. 

“ What! ” he exclaimed. “ Don’t you know? ” 

“ No,” I said. “ I heard your rigmarole in 
Honolulu, but the whole thing was a mere jumble 
of words to me. It still is. What does it mean? 
What is it — this Jallan Batoe? ” 

“Oh, pshaw! It’s all hearsay!” broke in 
Fitzhamon, with an emphatic dismissing toss of 
his curl-crop of head. “ The Poonan and their 
sacred Jallan Batoe, their Golden Women and 
their Green, Green God are a tale you’ll hear 
everywhere in the East. I’ve heard that tale down 
in Malay Muk’s in Banjermasin, where men from 
all the ragged edges of the Tropics meet and talk 
over Dyak-plaited mats and gin-pahits. Beach- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


19 

combers have spun that yarn to me when we sat on 
the bales of hemp before the godowns^ the ware- 
houses of Singapore. And even at Mahe in the 
tiny Seychelles Islands out in the Indian Ocean, 
IVe heard of the Golden Women and the Green, 
Green God. It’s all a fantastic legend, nothing 
more, about a Field of Stones — that’s what Jal- 
lan Batoe means in Dyak; a Field of Singing 
Stones.” 

“ Singing Stones ! But why singing? ” 

Fitz shrugged his shoulders as though stumped. 
“ I’ll tell you, man,” said Hyde, leaning toward 
me suddenly. “ I’ll tell you what the Poonan 
themselves say about these Singing Stones! ” 

The hand lifting the flask to Fitzhamon’s mouth 
stopped abruptly. He looked with liquidly bleary 
eyes from me to Hyde. His eyes remained on 
Hyde, as Hyde went on : 

“The Toewan Deewa, the Poonan say, made 
the world. It was a vast task. But their Greatest 
God is not so infallible as our God; for, when the 
creation of the world was consummated, the Toe- 
wan Deewa found in His possession a quantity of 
superfluous material. It was waste left over from 
making orang or men. We are supposed, you 
understand, to be made of the same substance as 
these Stones. But the Toewan Deewa had made 
enough men and plenty; so on that Seventh Day 
when our God rested. He rolled up in His fingers, 
as a Chinese does an opium pill, the whole mass 
of rock waste. Haphazard, then. He cast it in a 


20 


THE STRANGE STORY 


round ball down upon the earth. It struck upon 
a mountain in the heart of Borneo and crushed 
the top of that mountain in, like a cocked hat, to 
form a great, deep hollow bowl or crater. In this 
crater the Poonan now live; they live in caves in 
huge stones. For with the jar of the fall, they 
say, the waste of men’s souls broke into these mas- 
sive stones. And that is the Jallan Batoe, the 
Field of Stones. And every night, these stones — 
the souls of men who would-have-been — wail out 
in a weird death croon their misery at their fate.” 

“ Beautiful ! ” I said with the ardor of youth. 
‘‘A beautiful story. But of course, it’s the heat; 
the same case as that ruin of Karnak, the famous 
vocal Memnon, the Singing Stone of Egypt. You 
say the croon is only at night. Well, that’s be- 
cause the colder air of the night causes those stones 
to lose their heat with vibrations that disturb and 
hum through the air in this weird croon.” 

“ I believe you’re right,” Hyde nodded. “ The 
Jallan Batoe is up in central Borneo, near the con- 
fluence of the River Loeang with the River Barito, 
as the Dutch turn the names. And that’s almost 
directly and exactly beneath the equator ; so those 
stones are hoarding up the heat of the belching 
sun throughout the day ” 

“ But what is it — the Field of Stones? In your 
rigmarole you talked of a Robe of Holies and all 
manner of precious jewels. And just now, Mr. 
Fitzhamon spoke of Poonan and Golden Women 
and Green Gods. I do not understand all this; 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 21 

I don’t know what to think.” And in my em- 
barrassment, my eyes sought Fitz. 

Fitz had not moved that flask one inch nearer 
his lips; his arm seemed paralytically suspended 
in air. He was not looking at me. He was eying 
Hyde with drunken attentiveness — an odd drunken 
attentiveness. 

“ Oh,” Hyde explained easily, not noticing 
that; “ the Jallan Batoe is the Sacred City of the 
Dyaks, the natives of Borneo. As I said in my 
rigmarole, all kinds of rubies and diamonds and 
emeralds and pearls are there. It’s the treasure 
house of Borneo. It’s been so for hundreds of 
years. Gems are like marbles in the Jallan 
Batoe ” 

“But are they safe there? Can’t white 
men ” 

Hyde snorted. The parrot, drowsing on his 
shoulder, awoke at the snort and blinked its red 
eyes at me. 

“White men? Safe? Why, man, the Jallan 
Batoe is safe from the coolest dicer with life ever 
spun forth by the Foochow Road! It’s another 
Lhassa. It’s kept inviolate as a holy place by a 
whole race of people, an old, old ear-slitted race 
— these Dyaks, I mean. The Orang Laut, or Sea 
Dyaks of the coast, hold it so sacred because of its 
many legends that they fear even to breathe the 
name of it. And it’s the same with the wild head- 
hunting Dyaks of interior Borneo. They hold it in 
such mortal dread that they never have dared to 


22 


THE STRANGE STORY 


break its sanctuary by attempting to enter it — and 
they are the Orang Benua, lad, the brutish savages 
of the jungles ! ” 

With those huge hairy hands of his, he grasped 
my knees. 

“ I tell you,” he said, “ it has never been entered 
by the natives of Borneo save only the Wild Men 
of the Wilds, the Orang Poonan, who now live 
there. It’s the Holy of Holies of these Wild 
Men of the Wilds. And no Malay, Chinese nor 
Boegis of Borneo ever has entered it. No white 
man ever has entered it, and has lived to tell the 
tale. No white man, I say — but one. I am that 
one white man ! I saw the jewels, I tell you — the 
jewels and the gem-studded Mandati of Genghis 
Khan, and the Golden Women and the Green, 
Green God! ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


23 


CHAPTER III 

AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED 
IN THE FO’C’S’LE 

Fitz had been eying Hyde with a drunken atten- 
tiveness that was odd. Well now, of a sudden, he 
leaped afoot, staggered, steadied himself with a 
hand on a bunk, and shouted: 

“ Damn you, nobody ever got into the Field 
of Stones ! It’s all legend, all hearsay. Nobody 
knows where it is. The heart of Borneo? How 
do we know ? That’s Dead Man’s Negorei where 
no white foot has ever trod. Men have tried 
there; yes. In search of the Green, Green God, 
they have adventured among the blacks in the 
dark of New Guinea and the Solomons. They 
have sweated and rotted and died without find- 
ing it. Men have donned masks and outlandish 
rigs to get into Lhassa for it. White men, in- 
sane men, drunken men just like us! It’s all a 
myth I ” 

“ Myth I ” Hyde laughed bitterly. He got 
wearily to his feet and faced Fitz. 

Fitzhamon,” he said slowly, “ I know who 
you are. The last time I heard of you, every- 
body in Malay Muk’s was talking of a certain 
lieutenant at Fort Alfred in British North Borneo 
who had sold some British rifles to the Sultan of 


24 THE STRANGE STORY 

Brunei. Tm not mentioning any names; I don’t 
accuse you; but all I say is that I can imagine 
something of what you have gone through, Fitz- 
hamon, since you were ‘ cashiered ’ from the army. 

“ Yet I tell you, Fitzhamon, what you have 
gone through Is nothing to what I have suffered 
since I saw the Jallan Batoe ! I saw It, I tell you 
— I saw the Field of Stones and the Green, Green 
God! And I’m living In a tomb since I left 
Belufi’Mea Poa-Poa, my Golden Feather of 
Flame. She was a Golden Woman and Orlok 
Radenajo of the Poonan and — and my wife! I 
left her to what dread fate I know not; but I do 
know that that terrible doubt Is what has made me 
a beachcomber, a shell-and-pea fakir on the rat- 
walked sands of the South Pacific. I’m wander- 
ing always. I can’t forget!” 

Fitzhamon laughed a great drunken laugh. I 
saw Hyde’s beaded moon of face redden like a 
rash. We all were drunk with the whisky, which 
was overpowerful in that closeness of heat. We 
might come to blows. 

“ Gentlemen ! ” I Interposed. “ Gentlemen ! ” 

Hyde caught up my words. 

“ Gentlemen? ” with sarcastic Inflection. “ Oh, 
yes, we’re all gentlemen here, fine gentlemen. I, 
a Cambridge man, a ‘ full-blue,’ the son of a bar- 
rister and cut out to be a barrister myself. And 
now — the beachcomber Willyum Hyde, the cheat, 
the mountebank, the shell-and-pea fakir who walks 
the beaches of the Sea Islands and who consorts 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


25 

and shares the grub and beds down with Kanakas 
and Tahitians and vagabond white men as caste- 
less and ragged as himself. And Mister Fitz- 
hamon ! He’s even a finer gentleman. He’s the 
son of an Irish baronet and English lord, a gradu- 
ate of Sandhurst, a former lieutenant in the Brit- 
ish Army ! ” He shoved his big red face close to 
that of Fitz. “ Why, you damned bloody 
traitor ” 

He never finished. Fitzhamon’s left hand, 
clenched like a knot, swung from the bunk. It 
landed flush upon the side of Hyde’s red-bearded 
jaw. Hyde staggered back. The parrot fluttered 
up from his shoulder, beat its wings wildly 
against the flooring of the deck above and cawed 
hoarsely. 

Head down, Hyde rushed Fitz. Fitz backed 
away, down between the two rows of double- 
decked bunks. His hands whipped out like strik- 
ing snake-fangs, like stinging knouts. They struck 
Hyde. Hyde came on. They struck Hyde all 
about his lowered red head. But Hyde came on. 
He did not move an arm. He held his arms wide 
open. 

It was tremendous. Fitz backed slowly, swing- 
ing from the shoulders, from the hips ; drawing his 
right foot up almost to his left with a right swing, 
coming up on his toes with a hook. But Hyde 
came on. He was ready for the blows. They flailed 
either side of his head, fanged into his blue-scarred 
stomach and hairy chest; but they did not stop 


26 THE STRANGE STORY 

him, did not even jar him. He came on. His 
wound-pitted abdomen was as firm and elastic as 
tempered steel; his chest bulged round as a barrel. 
Like sweat balls, he shook the blows from his red 
face. Arms wide, his legs spread, his great shoul- 
ders crouched, he came on, ever on. 

Of one thing I was glad. The ill-fitting dun- 
garees on the men were fresh from the ship’s wash 
and, hence, I knew that both men were unarmed. 
There would be no gun-play. There would only 
be, for Hyde, a terrific collapse if Fitz smashed 
him to the deck; or a terrible struggle, for Fitz, 
once those long gorilla arms caught him; and 
either way, until that time, all I could do was to 
wait and watch. 

Fitz kept flitting back and back. He paused 
once, momentarily, without striking a blow, as 
though he was unable to understand Hyde’s tac- 
tics, Hyde’s refusal to return his blows. Hyde 
was after him then like a bull-dog that sees his 
chance to catch hold. Fitz flitted back. He struck 
out and continued to flit back. At last, fifteen 
feet down the aisle between the bunks, Fitz backed 
slam up against the bulkhead. My heart throbbed 
in my eyes; I felt he was done for then. There 
was no way to turn ; Hyde was in front, the bulk- 
head behind; he was caught in an impasse. 

Hyde rushed in. He rushed into Fitz’s right 
arm that had shot out, like a piston rod, straight 
and rigid from shoulder to knuckle-joints. Hyde 
was caught full upon the point of the jaw; his 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


27 

great red head tilted back sharply and so far that 
I thought his neck would break; his legs bent in at 
the knees and, for a moment, he tottered. 

In that moment Fitz stepped around him, away 
from the bulkhead and back up the aisle the way 
he had come. And in that moment as he stepped 
around the dazed hulk of man, like a flash Fitz 
brought over a left which coiled round Hyde’s 
back to his kidney. That looked like the finish of 
Hyde. 

But instead Hyde roared with pain and fury 
and shook his red leonine head, stiffened his knees, 
and turned round. Fitz followed up his advantage 
with lightning jolting blows; but with the rapid 
recuperative power lent him by his huge bulk, 
his great strength, Hyde had recovered from the 
daze. Arms wide, he came on. 

Fitz backed toward the hatchway. He backed 
up against the ladder. In the twilight from above, 
his tanned face looked a pale saffron, sleek with 
sweaty emotion. Again Hyde rushed him. Fitz 
tried to dodge to one side. His foot slipped in 
the puddle of water that had dripped from both 
Hyde and himself when they had changed into the 
dungarees. He went down on one knee. And 
then Hyde got him. 

With those long muscled arms, he grasped Fitz 
about the middle. He lifted Fitz up to his bulging 
hairy chest, wheeled half round on his heels, and 
then hurled Fitz bodily through the air between 
the rows of bunks. 


28 THE STRANGE STORY 

Fifteen feet away, against the bulkhead, Fitz 
brought up. There was a dull thud, sickeningly 
louder than the hoarse cawing of the parrot; then 
a squashy as Fitz fell to the deck. 

Hyde waited, his chest heaving as though it 
had cast off some weight, his arms once again 
wide open. But the dark pile on the deck against 
the bulkhead did not move. I ran down between 
the rows of bunks for a look at Fitz. He was 
lying all sprawled out like a frog, and groaning 
feebly. I struck a match. His head was cut at 
the bulge of the forehead near the right temple. 
Suddenly, as the match flared out, I saw his lips 
move; but I could not hear on account of the 
hoarse cawing of the parrot. 

“ Call down your parrot, man 1 ’’ I shouted to 
Hyde. “ I can’t hear a word.” 

Hyde made a noise — that indescribable cluck- 
ing — and the parrot settled down upon his shoul- 
der. Then with my ear close to Fitzhamon’s 
mouth, I heard him gasp: 

“Water! Water!” 

I gave him water. His eyes opened staringly. 
And they remained open while I bathed and ban- 
daged the cut on his head and while Hyde and I 
lifted him into the lower bunk opposite my own. 
I had hopes that some of the crew would not return 
from shore that night and that he therefore would 
not be disturbed from the bunk. He would be 
all right, I thought, in the morning. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


29 

“ Here,” said Hyde. “ Give him some of this.” 
And he handed me the flask which poor Fitz had 
never finished. 

I emptied some of it down Fitzhamon’s throat. 
His eyes closed heavily and then, for a while, he 
tossed restlessly. 

Hyde sat down upon the edge of my bunk op- 
posite. His face was glossy with sweat. For a 
long time, silently, he stared at the tossing 
form in the other bunk. Then, abruptly, he 
said: 

‘‘ It was just like that — ^just as I hugged and 
threw Fitz ! There was Belun-Mea Poa-Poa sac- 
rificing herself — running back into the Jallan 
Batoe and clutching the Green, Green God to her 
fear-chilled breasts; and I chasing after her, try- 
ing to stop her, shouting aloud with nameless 
dread ; and, all at once, from nowhere, that mon- 
ster man got between us. I didn’t know where he 
came from, or who he was; but I knew he was 
no Poonan. He was bigger than I and I was big- 
ger than any Poonan. And he grasped me, so he 
did — with two huge arms — about the middle — as I 
did Fitz. He almost squeezed the bowels out of 
me — you see the scars — and it was with his bare 
hands, mind you — just as I grasped Fitz. Yes, sir ; 
just like that, just like that! ” He repeated the 
words in a monotone of pain, and rocked from 
side to side, and looked down at his great veined 
hairy hands. 

“ Come, come, man,” I said. “ Take some of 


30 THE STRANGE STORY 

this yourself.’’ And I proffered him the unfin- 
ished flask of whisky. 

He looked up at me oddly, his eyes half-lidded 
from the effects of the alcohol he had drunk; then 
he looked down at the flask in my hand and shook 
his head. 

“ That’s all I remember,” he said, still shaking 
his great mane of hair. “ The next thing I knew, 
I was outside the Jallan Batoe. I’ve never been 
able to get back into it again. And I don’t know, 
I don’t know what happened to her. Oh, what did 
they do, those golden rats — what did they do to my 
Golden Feather of Flame ! ” 

He opened his eyes full upon me. His eyes 
were of a crisp light blue and I remember that 
then, of a sudden, they seemed strangely steadied 
with a peculiar light. It was the light from some 
inward misery — some deep misery of soul. I put 
my hand on his shoulder — the one not occupied by 
the parrot — in silent sympathy. 

He looked up at me quickly. 

“But what am I talking about? You don’t 
understand. But sit down; sit down, and I’ll tell 
you all about it. A drink ? — why, sure ! ” And, 
as though noticing the flask for the first time, he 
took it from my offering hand. 

I sneaked a look back over my shoulder at the 
form of Fitz. No longer tossing about restlessly, 
he was breathing thickly now, in a sleep brought 
on by exhaustion from the fight and superinduced 
by the effects of the strong whisky that was overly 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


31 

strong in the sudorific closeness of the fo’c’s’le. I 
sat down upon the edge of the bunk wherein he 
lay. 

Then I looked with wonder and great awe at 
that beaded moon of face before me, with its 
thick red dog-collar of beard. The pores of 
Hyde’s face were oozing liquid in slow trickles 
down into that flaming fringe where, for a breath, 
they held and took round form; then dropped to 
the entangled hairs on his heaving chest ; and then 
splashed upon his knees or huge hands or the mats 
on the deck. 

Presently, with that indescribable clucking as 
he wiped his stubbly lips, Hyde set his broad 
shoulders. The parrot swayed with the shrug- 
ging movement, but did not open an eye. Hyde 
leaned back. He pulled up one dungaree- 
trousered knee and clasped his huge hairy hands 
about it. Thus, rocking slightly, he began : 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER IV 

OF AN INSANE VENTURE AMONG 
JUNGLES AND TUNNELS, WHICH 
LED HYDE INTO THE JALLAN 
BATOE 

Before ever I descended to the beach and be- 
came a shell-and-pea man (said Hyde), I was an 
orchid-hunter “ out ” from England. I was only 
a lad playing at rounders when I first got the 
“ fever ’’ in the orchid conservatories of a cele- 
brated nobleman. I won’t tell you his titles, out 
of deference to poor Fitzhamon’s desire to remain 
more or less nameless; but I will tell you that it 
was through that hothead’s resemblance to him 
that I first placed who Fitz is. That nobleman, 
old now, with the dew of his youth turned to 
frost upon him, is Fitzhamon’s father. 

It all occurred while I was on a visit with my 
parents to County Kerry in Ireland. I well re- 
member the day when I was playing with some 
new acquaintances at rounders; that day when I 
batted the ball over the hedge of Lord — ^I mean, 
the hedge of the country place of Fitzhamon’s 
father. I had lost the ball and it was up to me to 
find it. I climbed over the spiny hedge of black- 
thorn, tearing my clothes, and there before me 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 33 

I saw the long low glass houses of the immense 
orchid conservatories. I saw, in the glass roof of 
one shed, a jagged hole where the ball had gone 
through. To get it, I entered the greenhouse. 

Then it was that I first felt the wish to hunt 
orchids. I can’t explain it ; but the sticky tropical 
heat of the glass gardens — artificial though it was 
— the outlandish little breath-blossoms clinging 
like many-colored butterflies to bits of bark and 
moss and muck and earth-veneered stone, some- 
how inoculated me with that virus which makes 
the orchid-hunter. The longing to chase the 
hurong-utan — the birds of the jungle, as the 
Malays often call orchids — gripped and tore 
at my heartstrings like a first love. Some years 
later — but a month after I had got my “ full- 
blue ” for football at Cambridge — I was “ out.” 

Then, upon a day twelve years ago, I found 
myself up in the dark heart of Borneo looking for 
Coelogyne Lowii, the “ Flower of Mercy ” of 
Borneo, which is frailer than a soap bubble, as 
delicate and white as pearl dust. I was north of 
the River Loeang in the unexplored country be- 
tween the Barito and the outskirts of the territory 
of the Sultan of Koetei. It was overgrown, 
choked, terrible country. It was “ Dead Man’s 
Country,” as Fitz said. 

Day after day, I broke through the interlaced 
lattice-work of growths, where the green sweated 
and the very birds were noiseless; day after day 
through a hot twilight under a canopy of plashed 


34 THE STRANGE STORY 

trees and giant ferns and ropes of creepers; and 
then, one day, rising before me, towering above 
the mystery of jungle, I saw a volcano peak, fully 
five thousand feet high. 

Near the foot of its jungled slope was a num- 
ber of great balks of bilian or ironwood trees 
which are like the cocobolo of the Philippines. 
The balks were almost hidden, overgrown with 
the voracious noxious growths of the jungle, but 
from their heaped-up formation I easily recog- 
nized them as a ruined fort. My Dyaks — of whom 
I had a crew of three for my gohang — told me 
that they were the ruins of that fort which had for- 
merly been the stronghold of the insurrectionary 
Dyak chief, Soro Patti. For twenty odd months, 
two long years, Soro Patti had held that fort 
against all the might, men and money of the 
Dutch. He had only a small band of Dyaks ; but 
legend has it that he was helped by the Orang 
Poonan — the Wild Men of the Wilds — whose 
Field of Stones, my Dyaks now told me, was lo- 
cated in the crater of that volcano. 

It appeared that the volcano, long extinct, had 
been hollowed out by the forces of nature to form 
an immense crater. And in that crater was a clus- 
ter of stupendous stones, a gigantic hodgepodge of 
monster rocks somewhat like the ruins of Gol- 
conda. My Dyaks said that the Poonan lived in 
huge caves in those stones. 

Now I had heard of the Poonan. In every 
festering slum of a native quarter within thirty 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


35 

degrees of the broiling Line, on burning shingle 
beaches and even deep in the rotting rhuk, I had 
heard tales of the Poonan and their sacred Jallan 
Batoe, their Green, Green God and Golden 
Women. So I looked up at that volcano with a 
sort of awe. 

I saw that it was jungle thickly up to a certain 
high line, then there seemed to be a space of 
low gnarled forest, and above that the volcano 
rose in steep sheer barren lava cliffs. I knew it 
would be hard work for me to scale those pre- 
cipitous cliffs — and I have scaled the perpendicular 
heights of Table Mountain in Cape Colony for 
scarlet Disa orchids and the lilac-blue Disa 
Longicornis. 

But I wanted to try. I was for at once for- 
getting my creamy Coelogyne and climbing that 
tall volcano. I wanted to get into that home of 
legend and mystery and awe. But my Dyaks — 
Christian boys from the Dutch schools of Banjer- 
masin — ^would have none of it. 

Deewa is baik/^ they said with clasped hands. 
“ Our God is good. But the Green, Green Deewa 
of the Jallan Batoe is a terrible god! ’’ And they 
shivered, but they would not budge. 

I left them. For a whole day, I climbed up- 
ward. I climbed upward through and over seas 
of brush and lush and uprooted trees. It was a 
hopeless tangle, almost impenetrable, seemingly 
unending, in which there was nothing whereby I 
could judge my progress. Long-armed trees and 


THE STRANGE STORY 


36 

coilers and dripping mosses shut out the sky over- 
head; a solid unbroken wall of ferns and purple 
undergrowth closed me behind; while above and 
ahead were only more trees and coilers, mosses 
and undergrowth and titanic ferns. I seemed to 
make no progress at all. Sometimes I lost hours 
creeping like a snail over a couple of hundred 
yards of slippery impenetrable brush. 

I camped that night in a space between three 
great durian trees. Here the growths were 
sparser than the rankness all about. Clearing off 
these growths with jackknife and bleeding hands, I 
uncovered a slab of bowlder incrusted with a thin 
mold of black teeming earth. The slab was lying 
at an angle on the mountainside so that it was al- 
most level. On it, I started a fire of wood, dead 
and as dry as one reasonably could expect to find 
in a jungle that sweats. I ate some rawa-rawa 
and cho and some other native fruits my Dyaks 
had gathered and given me on parting. Drawing 
out my pipe, I prepared to smoke until the dog- 
like bark of the kijang to its mate announced 
that it was sunup out in the world. I could not 
sleep. 

The mists of evening settled down about me 
like cold cobwebs; the night settled down inky 
black and as solemnly still as the dead. I smoked 
above a smoking fire. Suddenly, in that solemn 
stillness, I became aware of a distinct sound. It 
was the steady chill trickle of running water. A 
river ! I leaped afoot. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 37 

“Of course, a river!” I thought. “There 
must be some sort of river draining off that crater. 
Otherwise, under those terrific cloudbursts called 
tropical rainstorms, that crater would be a lake. 
I’ll follow that river into the Jallan Batoe! ” 
But I could not walk upright in the direction 
from whence that trickling sound came. The 
growths were too entangled to permit of that; they 
were impenetrable, a thick wave of lush. I 
crawled on all-fours over that wave, full of crests 
and troughs, my hands and knees sinking deep 
down through the spongy surface. I could no 
longer hear that chilly trickle. The solemn 
watches of the night were alive with the sounds 
I made: the snapping of twigs and shoots, the 
flutter of unseen birds and the buzz of insects 
aroused by my movements, from sleep. Then in 
the blackness I seemed to be slipping dizzily down 
the wet surface of the growths. That wet sur- 
face was on a slant. 

“ A runway! ” I gasped. “ I’m slipping into a 
sunken path.” But the air held a smell like the 
sodden smell from a swamp ; so I added, the next 
moment: “ It’s the bed of a river — the river! ” 

I slipped head-first into that river. Flounder- 
ing, I started to swim. But the river was not deep 
enough for that; it was only a stream. I got 
afoot and with the water surging against the sides 
of my legs, took twelve steps straight ahead. 
That brought me to the opposite bank of the 
stream. The stream was twelve feet wide. 


38 THE STRANGE STORY 

I retraced half a dozen steps back the way I 
had come. Sure thereat that I was in the center 
of the stream, I began in the blackness wading up 
and against the current. It was easy wading, save 
for a few lianas dangling from overhead, the 
slight press of the current against my knees and 
the sharp feel of pebbles beneath my well-worn 
boots. 

And then, without a bit of warning, the cur- 
rent eased, and the night blackened deeper than 
it had been before — if that were possible. I 
struck a match along the corrugated side of my 
German silver matchcase. I looked about. I 
looked about in a great wonder, for I saw, in the 
sparkle of the match, that I was in a gaping black 
hole. That hole was a tunnel in the mountain- 
side — a tunnel through the living rock — a tunnel 
into the Jallan Batoe! 

I broke into a run. Running, the match out, my 
hands outstretched in the blackness before my 
face, I made for the right-hand bank of the 
stream. I ran diagonally some thirty feet and 
then brought slap up against the side of the rock 
tunnel, which was wet and cold and slimy with 
lichens and other forms of rock-moss. The 
stream was down to my ankles, now ; the way was 
only a slight upward slant; and I knew from all 
this that the stream had grown shallow in spread- 
ing out. 

With my right hand feeling along the fungi- 
wet rock, I walked on through the solid viscid 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


39 

blackness. Here, in that rock tunnel, the stream 
was clogged with dank co^ow-grass, tall as myself, 
which had sprouted in the water like reeds or kelp. 
A cold wind that came from somewhere ahead was 
rushing through the tunnel. The cogon rustled 
wildly in that wind. It swished and snapped like 
clammy hands about my face. 

I lost all sense of time, of distance, in going on 
and on. Then abruptly, without any preparation 
other than a sudden brightening of the blackness, 
a welcome warming of the air, I felt the rock wall 
break off into nothingness. I stopped dead, as 
upset as a blind man who has lost his way. Quite 
frantically I looked about, but for an interval, so 
accustomed had my eyes become to the blackness, 
I could not see. Then I found myself looking 
upward, straining the back of my neck, the pupils 
of my eyes. Far, far above me, I saw the jagged 
rim of the crater, like a vast round O. In the 
center of that O was a round red ball. The moon ! 
I was in the Jallan Batoe! 

The Jallan Batoe! The Field of Singing 
Stones, the Treasure House of Borneo, the Holy 
of Holies of the Poonan 1 Between the two 
Tropics, in the hot places of the earth, other men 
were trying for that fabled sacred city — steering 
barnacled ships through uncharted seas, reefing 
to strange winds; breaking through everlasting 
jungles, sweating and rotting; and all, all dying 
without a glimpse of the Golden Women, of the 
precious Green, Green God! And I, Willyum 


40 


THE STRANGE STORY 


Hyde, a ne’er-do-well orchid-chasing Englishman, 
was in that Jallan Batoe which all sought so vainly, 
with so much blood as the price. Think of it ! In 
the Jallan Batoe where, for all I knew, no white 
man ever had been before! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


41 


CHAPTER V 

RELATES HOW HYDE WAS RECEIVED 
BY THE POONAN, AND MORE 
PARTICULARLY BY THE GOLDEN- 
HAIRED POA-POA BEARER 

Now I saw, in the brightness of moonlight 
(continued Hyde), that I was on a solid lava 
path. It was a sunken path; up to my shoulders 
on either hand were embankments of earth; and 
on those embankments, stretching away out of 
sight, were immense caladiums and pandanus, ar- 
borescent ferns and great orchid-and-creeper- 
laden trees. It was another jungle. 

“ They’re like Egyptian pyramid-builders, these 
Poonan I ” I said to myself. “ Through the cen- 
turies, from the outside, they have carried in this 
earth in rattan-woven baskets or lehets — hundreds, 
thousands of lehets, of men ! ” 

A terrific hum drowned my voice. I crouched 
back and took out my ^ng .38 on its .45-frame, 
the while I shook as with ague in every limb. It 
was not the night mist that caused me to shake ; it 
was Fear. I thought I saw, back among those 
trees, a number of monster wild animals, crouched 
as though ready to spring at me. 

But they were stones, stupendous stones, 
chiseled and wrought into resemblances of rhi- 


42 


THE STRANGE STORY 


noceros, of gajahs or elephants, of huge orang- 
outangs, of tiger-cats, and of outlandish pre- 
historic-looking mammals the like of which I never 
had heard. 

I went on. That humming still thrummed 
against my ear-drums. Of course I quickly sur- 
mised that the hum came from the stones, those 
gigantic hideous, but well-named Singing Stones. 
Yet it was hard to believe; it was a terrible form 
of singing. A monstrous wave of sound, it re- 
verberated from wall to rock wall of the 
crater; struck awe into my soul, and caused me 
to expect to hear, any moment, a rending of 
ground as the walls avalanched down with the 
sound. 

Still, revolver in hand, I went on. And now, 
the very moment that I entered the path, that mo- 
ment I felt the presences. They were like in- 
visible devils. A sudden scamper would wave the 
foliage at my shoulder, not a foot away; I would 
hear through the hum the low sound of voices, 
like bodiless whispers ; and then, like glow-worms, 
little fires would blaze up back in the lush, and go 
out. I could see no one. 

‘‘ The rats! ” I said to myself. “ They’re just 
like rats I ” And I shivered all over, continually. 
I was afraid that a reed siimpitan dart might 
speed or a mandau in unseen hands might cut me 
down at any moment. Yet, despite my perturba- 
tion, I noticed after a while that those fires were 
like winking wicked eyes in the crouching animal- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


43 

like stones. They came from the heart of those 
stones. 

‘‘ Caves ! ” I exclaimed. “ My Dyaks said the 
Poonan dwelt in caves in these stones. I see it 
all, now. Men are running ahead of me through 
the jungle on either side — that’s the scamper in 
the lush. And those couriers are warning the 
Wild Men — that’s the bodiless whispers. And 
those eyes winking out? — why, that’s the Wild 
Men banking their fires ! ” For I sniffed, even 
as I uttered the words, the smoke of struggling 
flames. 

Picture it! I was deep in a sunken path; to 
either side of my head, ferns and creepers were 
moving where others, close at hand, were still; 
fires were glowing like fireflies and dying down as 
under an extinguisher; and the bodiless whispers 
were playing an undernote to that monstrous hum. 

And now, of a startling suddenness, came a new 
sound — a terrifying wild medley of sound. Tom- 
toms beat hollowly to a quick erratic one-one time, 
cymbals crashed brassily, war-conchs bellowed like 
foghorns, and cogon whistles and bamboo flutes 
shrieked and shrieked to heaven. 

“ They’re coming! ” I thought. “ The Poonan 
are coming ! ” And in a funk of fear, with warmly 
moist and trembling hand, I swept my revolver 
over the brush above and the path before me. 

A stench like that of the saaty the stinking night 
badger, snailed into my nostrils. From around 
the bend in the path ahead gleamed a feeble saf- 


44 THE STRANGE STORY 

fron light. I aimed my .38 in that direction. Ap- 
peared then, as I waited, a smoking stinking 
torch, the flowing roundness of a woman’s arm, 
and then the woman poa-poa or fire-bearer her- 
self. 

Man, man ! she was a woman ! She was beau- 
tiful — really, rarely, wondrously beautiful! Tall 
she was, almost as tall as I, and of statuesque 
proportions. Her skin, white as cream, glinted 
with a kind of sheen in the feeble poa-poa light, 
as though she had been delicately dusted with 
gold. And her hair ! — no mere suspicion of gold 
there; it was the real thing. A thick tawny red 
like the very rawness of gold, a riotous mass that 
twisted and coiled, like hot Spanish ingots, back 
from her broad low forehead, and that curled 
about her transparent tiny ears like bits of fine 
filigree. 

But in her brows and lashes — there was con- 
trast for you ! Black as the deepest danau swamp 
and thin as a pencil line were her brows; and 
black, too, were her lashes — black and so long 
and silky that they curved slightly upward at the 
ends as though they had been molded to the soft 
roundness of her cheeks. 

And those silky brushes of lashes shaded, with 
tender shadows, the oddest of eyes — eyes almond- 
shaped and yet not almond-shaped, that were so 
big that the slight downward slant of the upper 
lids seemed almost a pose. Eyes that were blue as 
lazuli and still, like lazuli, in the saffron poa-poa 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 45 

light, the gold glint from her creamy skin, seemed 
to reflect in their depths a yellow gleam, the 
whole so transfused with blue and yellow rays 
that the irises were a subtle green in hue. Odd 
eyes indeed; Egyptian eyes like Cleopatra had; 
and eyes, too, just like Cleopatra’s, that could 
make a man do anything. Ah, she was a woman ! 

She was robed, this regal Egyptian-eyed Golden 
Woman, in a marvelously wrought gown of snow- 
white egret feathers — a gown too magnificent for 
one less full-blown and beautiful to wear. You 
know, egrets are caught on the Mahakkam, the 
Barito, the Loeang and other rivers of Borneo, 
and the mother birds, during the pregnant sea- 
son, robbed of their white feathers for the vari- 
ous usages of dress of the women of civilization. 
Yet never before in all my life had I seen a gown 
made entirely of white, white egrets ! 

It was like the holuku which the missionaries 
evolved to cover the brown charms of the 
Hawaiian women, even to the ruffle of feathers 
that banded her tv/in cups of low firm breasts 
round to the back. It was without waistline. But, 
like a gauze of mosquito netting, it showed the 
supple splendid form of her with each sinuous 
movement of her body as, upholding the poa-poa, 
she glided with pantherine grace toward me. 

Behind her pressed more Golden Women, quite 
several hundred of them. They carried those in- 
struments of sound. All were tall, almond-shaped 
in the eyes, and really beautiful, too. Their skins 


THE STRANGE STORY 


46 

were of a light-yellow velvet, somewhat darker 
than the poa-poa bearer’s, as if indeed they had 
been dipped bodily into molten gold. But all, 
save the drooping-lidded, green-eyed leader, were 
luxuriantly blue-black of hair. 

There were no men, nor signs of men. At 
that, my heart began to pound more normally. 
I had braved the dangers of getting into this 
sacred home of legend and of awe, terrible and 
abysmal; surely, now, I could brave the dangers 
of confronting beautiful women, armed as they 
were only with cymbals and horn conchs, tomtoms 
and cogon whistles. I lowered my heavy .38. 

But I did not halt. The golden-haired poa- 
poa bearer did not halt. We approached each 
other. 

Komite! Lengeau! ” she cried in the Poonan 
language — a language which I afterward discov- 
ered was a mixture of Dyak, Malay and Tartar, 
but mostly of Dyak and Malay, which languages 
I already understood: “Go! Fly!” 

But I came on. And seeing that I did not stop, 
that I looked at her without fear, with only rev- 
erent admiration, she cried out again — a frantic 
warning which sounded shrill with distraction even 
amid that awful overtone of the stones : 

N da, nda; no, no! Ak, bad! Here is only 
hanja soesa — plenty trouble ! Go ! Fly ! ” 

I was close to her, very close; I could feel her 
excited sweet breath upon my face. I stopped 
thereat. She held the poa-poa low between us, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


47 

waving me back. That fire licked at my red beard ; 
its smoke stung into my eyes and sickened my 
nostrils. It was just a bundle of sago leaves 
powdered with damar resin that smoked like a 
stinking smudge. I recognized it as a tamha- 
tong — a charm to drive me away. I laughed at 
it. . 

Kas^ Kas Deewa! ” I shouted loudly in Dyak 
with the boldness of the white man. “ I’m after 
the Green, Green God ! ” 

She looked at me with her greenish eyes from 
under those blackest of pencil brows, those long- 
est of silky curving lashes. She looked at me 
sharply. And as she looked, her sensitive nostrils 
quivered in a sort of fear or terror. On the sudden 
— and mark this — she bent toward me and swung 
the poa~poa in her right hand up above her head, 
so that its feeble light fell full upon my face. She 
reached out her slim tapering left hand then, and 
with trembling fingers, felt of my red beard, of 
my red hair, as though they were something won- 
derful in texture and color. Her Egyptian eyes, 
wide as a child’s, stared and stared into my eyes 
as into a second wonder. Then, quickly, her hand 
dropped from my beard to her side. 

Seek laha wook ! she cried, the timbre of 
terror shaking her voice just as the thrum of the 
stones was shaking the air: “ Hair red as blood! 
Eyes blue as the sky 1 ” And she bowed her head 
to the lava floor of the path before me. 

The women behind surged forward in a wave as 


48 THE STRANGE STORY 

though the better to view me. Their many eyes 
glittered like almonds of dew in the moonlight. 
Suddenly they shrieked in Poonan: 

“ Hair red as blood ! Eyes blue as the sky ! 
And bent their backs low, like grass before a 
wind. 

The golden-haired poa~poa bearer shivered 
erect. She took a great breath, leaned far back 
from me and then, with amazing swiftness, traced 
with the poa-poa nine downward and upward 
strokes in the air before my very face ! 

I remembered thereupon. I had heard that 
that repetition — nine times of anything — was a 
sign to the Poonan sacred and mystical and full 
of awe, the symbol of some dread power. Pm not 
superstitious, not more than humanly supersti- 
tious, anyway ; yet I could not help it. I fell back 
a pace. 

ArrSr* the woman announced, upflinging 
both arms above her head, the poa-poa in the one 
blazing out with unwonted vigor at these sudden 
actions. “Behold! It’s the Mopeng-Lon — the 
Man-Child of Genghis Khan 1 It is the Sending — 
the Sending of the Mandau! Arre!^* 

And shrieking hysterically these words, the con- 
nection of which with myself I could not compre- 
hend, she swept with her golden hair the lava 
floor before me nine distinct times. 

Ahe!^* chorused the women in high excited 
tones. “ Lo I It is the Man-Child of Genghis 
Khan! It is the Sending of the Sword! AheT* 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


49 

And they too bent down, then up again, and down 
and up again exactly nine times. 

I watched and listened in a sort of stupefaction. 

Suddenly from either hand of the lush-grown 
embankments, with a noiselessness uncanny amid 
all that singing of stones and wail of voices, a hun- 
dred men — ^squat, slit-eyed, light-yellowish-skinned 
men — jumped down in scores into the path. 

They were garbed only in jawats, long narrow 
strips of animal hides wound round and round 
their middles, the ends hanging down loose be- 
tween their legs. In two long lines against the 
embankments they stood, their hands clasped 
about the center of tall sumpitan blowguns, their 
heads bowed upon their hands. 

“ Hair red as blood! Eyes blue as the sky! ” 
they rumbled in Poonan deep down in their chests, 
a rumble like an echo of the humming overhead. 
** Ahe! It is the Man-Child of Genghis Khan! 
It is the Sending of the Sword! Ahe!^* 

I walked on. Impelled more by what I thought 
was expected of me than by any boldness now, like 
a man in a dream I walked on into the Field of 
Singing Stones between those bowed ranks, those 
bent backs. Behind me, after I had passed, I 
could hear beneath the humming in the air, the 
sounds of those men forming. Like a multitude 
of golden rats, they swept along after me. 


50 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER VI 

ABOUT DIVERS THINGS, BUT MOSTLY 
ABOUT THE NATURE OF A ROOF 
FOR THE NIGHT 

Now, as Hyde talked, night had fallen, thick 
and black and suffocating, as though the whole 
world were cloaked under some colossal cassock. 
I could not see Hyde’s face. I could only see the 
sweat drops glistening, like diamonds in the hot 
dark, upon his red halo of beard and upon that 
gorilla-mat of hairs on his chest. 

I got up upon the edge of the bunk wherein 
Fitz was sleeping, and lighted the rope wick of 
the slush-lamp over our heads. Hyde paused. 
As I stepped down, I heard from Fitz a low 
moan, as if some pang of pain had disturbed his 
restless slumber. Bending down and looking into 
the bunk, in the dim light from the swaying lamp, 
I saw him twist his bandaged curl-crop of head and 
settle over on his side, his back to us. Then he 
was very still. 

I sat down again upon the edge of the bunk 
under the slight sway of the swing fo’c’s’le lamp. 

“ Go on, Hyde,” I urged. “ You were like 
a man in a dream, you remember, and the natives 
swept you along into the Jallan Batoe like a multi- 
tude of golden rats.” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


51 

He nodded his red head. On his shoulder the 
parrot was dead with the heat like a withered 
green bulb. Hyde opened his loose drunken mouth 
in the depths of that glistening halo of beard. 
Then, distinct against the monotonous wash and 
lap of the water of the bay, I heard his voice 
spouting once again that hare-brained, staggering 
story : 

The round red ball of moon had dropped sud- 
denly out of sight below the jagged rim of the 
crater (Hyde said) ; it was that fabled darkest 
hour of the night which is supposed immediately 
to precede dawn. With the multitude sweeping 
after me, the air humming in my ears and the light 
from the poa-poa of the beautiful golden-haired 
woman, who was just behind me, feebly winking 
out the way, I made the bend in the path ahead. 
I made that bend, then in sheer amazement halted 
dead. 

The embankments had fallen sharply away, and 
the path ahead was now no longer a path but an 
avenue, wide and grass-grown as a lawn and lined 
with tall palm trees that looked like feathery black 
dusters in the night. On each side of the avenue, 
stretching away and away, were many stones, huge 
as office-buildings and crouched like uncouth ani- 
mals, the whole muffled by the shadowy shapes of 
tropic trees and growths. 

I remember that the singing of those stones 
seemed louder now in the colder airs of the late 


THE STRANGE STORY 


52 

night; and I remember, also, that I wondered, 
even in my amazement, whether all those stu- 
pendous atones had been carved out by the hand 
of man, or wrought into their strange forms 
by the torrenting rains and wearing processes of 
nature. 

Thus, looking down the avenue, I saw, far 
away at its end, the monster stone of all. The 
sight heightened my amazement, if such could be ; 
for that stone, jutting out on the left-hand side 
of the avenue, reared like a mountain above all the 
other stones. It was a Goliath among stone giants. 
It was wrought into some vast shape that looked, 
at that distance, like a Sphinx. And that I could 
make out its shape at all at that great distance, 
was due to a remarkable feature. For the whole 
stupendous bulk of it glowed as limestone does in 
the sun — in all that blackness, a sparkling daz- 
zling white ! 

“ It’s like the Taj Mahal! ” I breathed. “ It’s 
a wonder of the world. Can it be some marble 
memorial to a dead king or queen? ” 

The wondrous Egyptian-eyed poa-poa bearer, 
seemingly having recovered a bit from her first 
terror and awe of me, stepped beside me, and as 
though in answer to my words — which of course 
it was not, as the words were breathed low and in 
English, a tongue which, even if she had heard, 
she could not possibly have understood — said 
softly close to my ear: 

“ That, O Man-Child of Genghis, is the Stone 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


53 

DohOf the Holy of Holies of the Poonan. 
Therein are the Green, Green God, the Tojout- 
Plo-Sie Throne of the Tartar Empire, and the 
Menacing Mandau of Genghis Khan ! ’’ 

I smiled brightly at her, although the most I 
understood of her words was that this white 
stone was the Cave-Temple of the Poonan and 
that in it I should find the Green, Green God. But 
with the idea in mind of somehow getting that 
Green, Green God forthwith, I started down the 
grassy avenue. 

Far, far ahead, I saw that that avenue ended 
abruptly beyond the Stone Doho in a broad black 
expanse, surrounded by the feathery shapes of 
palms. Those palms stood out like silhouettes in 
the white glow from the Dobo and in the center of 
them, the broad expanse seemed strangely to re- 
flect that glow, its black surface rippling and 
glinting with a silvery sheen. 

“ It’s water,” was my instant thought. “ The 
source of that very river which led me in here. 

A lake, no doubt, or a ” 

I stopped in both thought and action. The slim 
tapering left hand of the golden-haired woman 
was upon my sleeve, the while with the other, 
holding the poa^poa, she was motioning me toward 
the nearest stone on the right-hand side of the 
avenue behind the row of palms. 

Sepau johop, Man-Child,” she said gravely, 
but loudly enough for me to hear in all that sing- 
ing of stones: “ Thy roof for the night.” 


54 THE STRANGE STORY 

** Baik, O jipodoa radenajo/* I answered: 
“ Good, O beautiful queen.” 

She colored charmingly at my compliment — a 
golden red in the poa-poa light — but politely re- 
fraining from observing that, I bowed my obedi- 
ence; for it was part of my vague plan, now, to 
play my hand very slowly, allowing the Poonan to 
lead and show me, ere I staked my all on a try for 
the Green, Green God. 

Wherefore, with the woman gliding with pliant 
pantherine grace at my side, I made quickly for 
that nearest stone. Above my head, as I passed 
through the space between two slim tall trunks, 
the feathery fronds of the palms waved slightly, 
yet with sound I could not hear because of the 
heavy thrum in the air. Beyond them, as I ap- 
proached the stone, I saw that the whole immense 
stone was wrought into the likeness of a gajah 
or elephant — an elephant bent on its clumsy knees 
as though to receive a burden. And in each of 
the bent foreknees was cut a flight of nine stairs 
leading up to a black arched hole, fully twelve feet 
high and without sign of a door. 

I went up the nine stairs in the nearest fore- 
knee. The stone thrummed about my ears, the 
very stairs beneath my feet vibrated with the 
exudation of that heat, so pent-up during the hot 
day. The multitude, even to my gentle conduc- 
tress, stayed behind. I wondered at that. I faced 
about ere I entered the gaping black hole. Below, 
I saw that dark sea of faces upturned to me. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


55 

“ They’re watching me,” I said to myself. 
“But why? What is there in this stone? Is it 
really a roof for the night, as that exquisite woman 
said? Or is all this business and kowtowing 
merely a savage game, the end of which is in this 
stone? And what is that end? Armed men lurk- 
ing in wait for me inside, or some brutal form of 
torture concealed in the black caves — some tor- 
ture, silent and slow and horrible? ” 

I didn’t know what to think, what to do. In 
my helpless fear-filled bewilderment my eyes 
sought out, in that watching multitude, the snow- 
white-clad figure of the lovely poa-poa bearer. 
There, beneath one of the palm trees immediately 
below me, she stood. The poa-poa, still smoking 
like a smudge, was lowered before her face and 
above it, in that cloud of smoke, her delicate 
oval face seemed to be floating free from her rich 
body as in a smoky nimbus. Beneath her molten 
riot of golden hair, beneath her slightly uptilted 
pencil-lines of eyebrows, her long silk lashes, her 
eyes were on mine. They were big, odd, green- 
ish eyes, as I said, and whether it was because of 
the fitful gleamings of the poa-poa or not, they 
seemed to be dancing now with laughing lights. 

“ She’s mocking me for my fears ! ” I thought. 
“ She’s opening her cherry lips to tell me to go 
on ! But I’ll go on, my beauty, never fear ! ” And 
swelled with a mighty bravado, I turned ere she 
could speak and went through that gaping arched 
hole. 


56 THE STRANGE STORY 

I went through that gaping arched hole into a 
blackness blacker than the night outside ; an inky 
pitchy blackness, thick as jelly, and that shook like 
jelly with the terrific thrumming of the stone 
above, beneath and to both sides of me. Within 
the black heart of that stone, the thrum was a 
monstrous wave of sound; it smote my ear-drums 
like a gale of thundering wind. I struck a match 
hastily. 

Protecting with cupped hands that sliver of 
flame from the draught through the entrance, I 
looked fearfully about. I found I was in a cave. 
No, it was not exactly a cave; it was more like a 
corridor, a great hollowed-out horseshoe-shaped 
corridor. For, from the gaping hole by which I 
had entered to the hole in the other foreknee of 
the elephant, I saw that that corridor ran round 
in a half circle. Then the match went out. 

But not until I had seen behind me, hanging 
from the wall of the corridor just inside the en- 
trance, a number of sago leaves, bunched and 
prepared with resin for use as torches. I lighted 
one. It was not a damar torch; it did not stink 
like the saat, though it did smoke copiously. By 
its smoky flickering, I made a circuit of the cor- 
ridor, or until I came out at last upon the head of 
the flight of stairs in the opposite foreknee of the 
Elephant Stone. 

Outside the Poonan still were clustered about the 
foot of the stone, the beautiful poa-poa bearer 
in their center and all faces turned to her as though 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


57 

seeking enlightenment upon some subject I did 
not doubt but that that particular subject was noth- 
ing less than myself. With the very thought, I 
was made sure of it; for suddenly, as I appeared 
and looked down at them with the torch smoking 
in my hand, the golden-haired woman looked up 
in answer to my eyes, saw me and cried out: 

Arre I Behold and bowl The Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan! Behold and bowl Arre!^^ 

Her voice seemed to come from afar off — a 
whisper of sound snailing between the strata of 
the hum. But she was not making game of me. 
In fact, I felt these were the very words she had 
been about to utter when, a minute before, I had 
faced around ere first I entered the Elephant 
Stone. For now I saw all those beautiful Golden 
Women and short squat Golden Men, led by the 
poa-poa bearer, bow down to the ground and up 
again, down and up again, one, three, six times. 

But I was wearied of watching them go through 
this solemn rite of awe — wearied of watching and 
of trying the while to puzzle out the meaning of it 
all. More than that and to admit the truth, I 
had noticed in the inner wall of the corridor a 
little niche like a low doorway, and my curiosity 
was aroused; I wanted to see what was beyond. 
So without waiting for the Poonan to finish their 
nine kowtows, I turned and entered again the 
thundering corridor ; and so, by the feeble blinking 
of my torch, came finally to that niche — the only 
recess in that whole horseshoe of corridor. 


58 THE STRANGE STORY 

It was a doorway, surely enough. Beyond It 
was a cavernous room, throbbing and booming so 
mightily with the thrum of the stone that the 
sound clapped against my ears, as I entered, like 
the breaking of ton-weight combers on a rock- 
bound coast. And so vast was that room that I 
could not see Its lofty ceilings by the light of my 
torch, nor the walls of living rock at the far ends. 

I went round the walls, one hand outfeeling the 
way, the other upholding the torch above my head 
— a mere mote of light in a booming sea of black- 
ness. Near the niche of a doorway, seeming tiny 
as a t@y in all that immensity, I found a rush- 
plaited couch. And that proved to be the sole bit 
of furniture in the whole cave; there were no 
other garnishments of any kind, either useful or 
ornamental. It was just a cave, cyclopean as the 
chambers of Carthage, whose houses were vast as 
temples and whose temples were enormous cities. 

Overwhelmed by the size and the sounds in that 
cave, I came back to that tiny couch and sat down. 
I sat down upon a black-spotted leopard skin, the 
velvet skin of the pehang. And knowing that, 
among the Dyaks of Borneo, the pehang is a 
sacred animal, I thought that it might be the same 
with the Poonan. Wherefore I wondered, now, 
that they should have placed a sacred skin there 
for me. 

“What does It all mean?” I asked myself, 
amidst that tremendous booming of sound. 
“ What is at the bottom of all this business of 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


59 

sacred pehang skins, of kowtowing, of feeling my 
beard and hair, and of shouting about the blueness 
of my eyes ? Always I have heard that the Poonan 
repel invaders, both natives and rash adventurers, 
with mandaus and poisoned sumpitan darts, with 
hideous tortures. And I have heard tales and 
tales, also, of some dread nameless power which 
the Poonan possess — ^a power like that of the 
Thibetans, witnessed by the explorer, Sven Hedin 
— the Thibetans who can make a man disappear 
in a cloud of smoke by the mere utterance of a 
single mysterious word ! 

“ But with me — all it is, is Genghis Khan, 
Genghis Khan ! What’s the meaning of this refer- 
ence to Genghis Khan — this constant, incessant 
reference to Genghis Khan?” 

Of a certainty, I did not know. But Genghis 
Khan, about whose boundless dominions and 
bloody conquests all the world once talked — what, 
I thought, had these Poonan to do with that great 
Tartar monarch and war lord? And I, Willyum 
Hyde, an ovcKid- shikar^ a vagabonding English- 
man — what had I to do with that Lord of Lords, 
dead for seven hundred years, that they should 
call me the Man-Child of Genghis Khan? 

The question weighed on my mind like the 
immensity of that cave weighed on my spirit. I 
felt the question beyond me, unansv/erable, as un- 
fathomable as the booming black reaches of that 
cave. So, as though It were a weight In reality, I 
tried to cast it off my mind. 


6o THE STRANGE STORY 

And there was good reason why I should cast 
it off my mind. I had not batted an eye in sleep 
since I had parted from my Dyak boys, the morn- 
ing before, outside the Jallan Batoe — something 
over twenty hours gone. Well now, as I sat upon 
that couch and cudgeled my brains, the while the 
booming hum of the stone clapped against my 
ears, I suddenly realized how exhausted I was. 
The tussle through the jungles up the slope, my 
strange experience afterward upon entering the 
Field of Stones, had worn me out completely. I 
prepared for sleep. 

I doused the torch — to rid myself of the chok- 
ing annoyance of its smoke, but more to shut out 
the enormity of that cave in which it seemed such 
a useless, tiny pin-point of light. I lay down upon 
the pliant interwoven rush-fibers of the couch then, 
and in order to keep off the chill current of morn- 
ing air which was sweeping through the niche of 
doorway, pulled over me that warm leopard skin. 

Yet I did not sleep. All that dawning, as I 
lay upon the rush-plaited couch and the far-flung 
stone walls of the cave thrummed and throbbed 
like an angry sea about my ears, I thought, if a bit 
hazily, of golden-haired full-blown lovely women, 
who twined their fingers in my red beard and 
smiled at me with dancing black-lashed Egyptian 
eyes ! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


6i 


CHAPTER VII 

AFTER WHAT MANNER HYDE FOUND 
HIMSELF A PRISONER IN THE ELE- 
PHANT STONE 

And then (Hyde went on) quite suddenly I was 
wide-eyed awake; for, just that suddenly, the 
awful humming of the cave had boomed away like 
the final crashing peal of some majestic organ. 
Now wavered in the air only eery echoes that 
seemed to be rolling back from the black recesses 
of the cave. 

Unable to move, the drums of my ears tightened 
to catch the slightest sound, I lay and tingled 
through and through with every dying echo. Then, 
from the lofty ceilings, the last echo moaned down 
to me like the cry of a wounded bird; and then — 
silence, heavy, strained, full of vague unrest, as 
though the very stone had put a finger to its cave- 
mouth in dread of the next happening. 

Somehow, shivering, I got to my feet. With 
a tread, the softness of which was induced by 
the stealthy silence of the stone, I crept out 
through the niche of doorway, out through the 
gray-brightening corridor, to one of the two arched 
entrances, gaping open now onto a vista, silvery 
in the ghostly light of dawn. 

Dawn ! At that, I understood in a flash the 


62 


THE STRANGE STORY 


reason for the sudden surcease of the singing of 
the stones. Only for a few hours prior to dawn 
' — the few hours of the night that are the coldest 
in the twenty-four — did the stones exhale their 
heat, stored up during the blistering day, with vi- 
brations that shook and hummed through the air. 

It was just as you said, Colum Kildare. For 
now, with the dawn of day and the resultant warm- 
ing of the air, the stones once more were hoarding 
up the heat; nor would they give out that heat, 
to the awful accompaniment of that singing, until 
the mists of night again swathed the Jallan Batoe 
in chill laces and caused those stones, in that chill, 
to vibrate with their own warmth even as a man 
shudders in a draught. Truly, once you grasp it, 
an understandable natural phenomenon; but to a 
brutish savage mind, a mystery incomprehensible 
— awesome as the voice of a god. 

But that silvery vista: It was the Jallan Batoe, 
the Field of Singing Stones, silent now in the first 
light of day — an innumerable number of tower- 
ing rocks, carved like malignant mammals, and 
crouching in a perfect jungle of trees — gigantic 
trees, huge-rooted in black rich earth, hedged 
about by immense ferns and pandanus and lush- 
growths, and festooned with spidery networks of 
bloodcreepers and orchids. All looked purple, 
instead of green, in the gray light of dawn; and 
over all, rising up in filmy whitish volutes, the 
mists of the night were floating in thin filaments 
of clouds. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 63 

But not every one of those stupendous stones 
was embedded in jungle. Here and there, be- 
tween the stohes, were large patches of black 
earth, cleared and under cultivation, and all com- 
pletely encircled by rude fences of stout bilian 
stakes and entwined coils of rattan to bar out 
boars, temhadu or wild cattle, and deer from slip- 
ping in and plowing up the ground. 

Some of the patches had been recently and very 
crudely scraped, the seeds lying on the black ruf- 
fled surface, like glistening dewdrops, after the 
most primitive fashion of farming known to man; 
others were merely soggy plots planted to rice; 
but the most were areas, ripe with clusters of 
fruit trees, with sprouts of tapioca and pepper 
and waving jungle maize. One patch had the 
appearance of a palisade of bamboo stalks — they 
were the slender canes of sugar; another was 
spiked with the tall broad leaves of some kind of 
tobacco; while still another upbore what looked 
like a clump of exaggerated greenish cigars, 
crested with great leaves twice as tall as a man, 
and laden with hundred-pound clusters of luscious 
yellow pisangs or bananas. 

Far, far away, seemingly above the jungle, above 
even the towering stones — ^rolling high up to the 
precipitous foot of the shining black lava walls 
of the enormous crater — ^were spacious fields of 
gray-green grass, on which I could dimly make out 
sleeping herds of gaurs or young buffaloes, and 


THE STRANGE STORY 


64 

restlessly moving droves of fat and tame tern- 
baduy and of deer of two species — the plandok or 
tiny mouse deer and the kijan^, a sort of antelope, 
whose short sharp ringing cry, oft repeated, re- 
sembles the barking of a dog. All seemed blue- 
black in tone on account of the gray light and 
misty distance. 

Now, from where I stood — in the left-hand en- 
trance of the Elephant Stone — I could not see, 
because of the trunk of the elephant which curved 
out and down on my right hand, that great glow- 
ing Stone Doboy far down on the opposite side of 
the avenue. Nor, by the same token, could I see 
that lake or danau — if it were a swamp — which 
lay, in the circle of palm trees, just beyond the 
Stone Dobo. 

But thought of that body of water caused me to 
look for signs of the river which I had followed, 
the night before, into the Jallan Batoe and which, 
I remembered, had seemed to vanish somewhere 
in the blackness of the rock tunnel. Yet, look 
where I would in all that wide space of growths 
and stones and cultivated fields before me, there 
was no glitter, no murmur — no sign nor sound of 
running water. 

“ It’s an underground river,” I said as though 
I had made a discovery. “ Fm pretty sure it 
flows from that sheet of water in here; but it 
must be hidden under the original lava floor of 
the crater until, somewhere in that rock tunnel, 
it rises to the surface. There’s no need of it irri- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


65 

gating these growths, however; the heavy tropi- 
cal rains downpour more moisture than the earth 
really needs. And the earth! — why, it’s not al- 
luvium from the lava walls of the crater; whatever 
loose earth there is in those walls, is held in, 
thickly coated over by those solid shining layers 
of lava.” 

No; the rich soil of the crater, I saw, was com- 
posed of compacted dead leaves and decayed 
twigs, of waste from the rocks and from the hol- 
lowed caves in ^hose rocks, and of virgin earth, 
too, that was black as the earth of the Bornean 
jungles outside. 

“ They must have brought most of this earth in 
here in strings of rattan-woven lehets/^ I said — 
“ strings of men and men 1 They’re like the Inca 
terrace-builders, the Egyptian pyramid-builders, 
these Poonan, just as I first surmised ” 

I paused. All of a sudden, interrupting with 
sound the very words in my mouth, the whole 
jungle seemed rousing to life. The big green pods 
of the bloodcreepers burst out, with the noise of 
revolver shots, into enormous and brilliant red 
blossoms; birds, fantastically colored of feathers, 
swooped in and out of the labyrinth of growths, 
fluttered and called high up in the thin clouds of 
mist, still floating in the air; and I even caught, 
from somewhere in the cool beneath the stones, 
the plaintive grunt of a pig disturbed in its sloth- 
ful comfort by some restless boar. Then breath- 
ing faintly into my ears from those far-off fields, 


66 THE STRANGE STORY 

came the staccato ringing barking of kijangs call- 
ing their mates. It was sun-up. 

It was the very sun-up that, the night before 
as I smoked my pipe over the smoking fire, I had 
resolved to await outside the Jallan Batoe. 
Hardly could I credit my memory of things and 
time — it seemed so utterly impossible that all I 
have related had happened to me in so short an 
interval as one night! 

But looking up, through the rapidly dissipating 
filaments of mist at the serrated rim of the crater 
far above, I saw the crimson shafts of sunrise 
streaking that vast round O of sky for all the 
world like darts from the long sumpitans of the 
Poonan. And almost in the very trice that I 
looked up — just that quickly — the topmost edge of 
the blazing ball of sun sailed over the east sweep 
of that great 0 1 

In the sudden dazzle of sunlight, I looked 
round again at the wonderful Field of Stones. 
My eyes stopped at the line of palm trees which 
bordered the grassy avenue immediately before my 
Elephant Stone. Waving about the roots of those 
palm trees were many poppies, through the rich 
coloring of which I must have trampled the night 
before; for they were poppies, bloody red and 
leprous white in color. They were opium pop- 
pies. That I knew because I could see now, in 
the brightness of sunlight, the very incisions made 
in the capsules of the plants for extracting opium 
juice. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 67 

Yet it was not that which startled me and filled 
me with an unholy fear. I circled round the cor- 
ridor to the other entrance. I peeped out. It 
was the same. 

Pacing back and forth, monotonously back and 
forth, at the foot of each flight of nine stairs, was 
a squat slit-eyed golden-skinned man, a long curv- 
ing mandaii or sword hanging from one side of 
his jawat, striking against his bare legs and glint- 
ing steely in the sun, and a blowing-tube or sum- 
pitan of bamboo, at least nine feet long, aslant on 
his shoulder like a soldier’s gun ! 

I understood then. I was a prisoner! 


68 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER VIII 

OF THE FIRST FLUTTERING OF LOVE, 
AND OF A GOLDEN WOMAN WHOSE 
EYES WERE EVIL 

But I was a prisoner of a queer sort (and Hyde 
laughed in his red dog-collar of beard at the recol- 
lection) . Indeed, in view of the way in which I 
had been kowtowed to and what with my added 
knowledge of later events, I’m pretty positive, 
now, that those two squat slit-eyed Golden Men, 
if they were a guard, were before everything else, 
a guard of honor. 

My first fear-filled thought was wrong. I was 
not a prisoner at all. As I remember that day, it 
was nothing like the solitary captivity of a 
prisoner. It was more like a levee of some kingly 
Louis back in old France. 

All day. Golden Women and Golden Men, but 
mostly women, clambered up the nine stone steps 
to my cave, rattan-woven lebets on their backs 
and flaring torches, despite the hot light without, 
in their hands. The horseshoe-shaped corridor of 
the Elephant Stone was bright at either end, near 
the arched entrances, with rectangles of sunlight; 
but within, save for the space about my couch 
close to the niche of doorway, the vast inner cave 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 69 

was dark. It was dark, that is, until the long line 
of jawat-gwtQd men and sarong-^rz^^td women 
placed their torches in cavities in the stone walls; 
whereupon the whole cyclopean chamber glowed, 
some six feet above the floor, with a belt of light 
that reminded me, strangely, of the Strand back 
home on a foggy night. 

They laid before me those baskets on their 
backs, and opened them. I saw that they were 
filled with bananas and the roasted edible seeds 
of the tamadac or jackfruit tree, the roast meats 
of temhadu and pigs, and the jerked venison of 
deer. Before all that array of food and before 
that crowd of men and beautiful women, like some 
Oriental monarch, I sat cross-legged upon the 
couch on the sacred pehang skin. 

They felt of my red beard, of my red hair, as 
though to them, as to the golden-haired poa-poa 
bearer of the night before, my beard and hair 
were something wonderful in texture and color. 
They looked into my eyes for all the world like 
awe-smitten children. 

Seek laha wookf” they repeated softly. 
“Hair red as blood! Eyes blue as the sky! 
Arre! It is indeed the Man-Child of Genghis 
Khan!” 

Then, with more of fear shaking their voices 
than I had noted ever before, they added : 

“It is the Sending! Ahe! The Sending of the 
Mandau! ” And then down to the stone flooring 
before me they bowed nine times. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


70 

It was weird, uncanny. I began to feel not so 
much like an Oriental monarch, as like some stone- 
graven Buddha, cross-legged and squatting amid 
votaries and offerings in some dark grotto ! 

And all the while, remember, I was attempt- 
ing to conquer an impulse to ask those people 
the meaning of their strange words and of their 
stranger treatment of me. I wanted to know what 
the color of my hair and beard and eyes had to 
do with Genghis Khan, dead for seven hundred 
years, that they should call me the Man-Child 
of that great Tartar Emperor. I wanted to know 
what was the meaning of that Sending they spoke 
of — that Sending of the Sword. I wanted to 
know the meaning of those votive offerings. I 
wanted, dearly wanted to shout: 

“ What are you going to do with me, what are 
you going to do with me ! ” 

But instead and for good reason, I said nothing. 
They called me the Man-Child of Genghis Khan 
— very well ; as ably as my ignorance would allow, 
just that ably would I live up to that role, what- 
ever it was. But I could not let them know that 
I did not understand. I was playing a slow game 
for the Green, Green God, leaving it to them to 
lead and show me, and I did not doubt but that 
they soon would show me. I would yet learn the 
meaning of all that kowtowing, of all that con- 
tinual irritating talk of Genghis Khan. Till then, 
I could strive only to keep my welling curiosity 
in check. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


71 

Wherefore, to quiet my jumping nerves, I di- 
verted myself by watching that endless line of 
men and of beautiful women. They were all 
beautiful, really; but I watched them in search of 
her who seemed to me the most beautiful of all ! 

“ There’s one,” I found myself saying, “ with 
lashes as long and curving and as black and silky, 
but — but her eyes are brown! Ah, here comes 
another in a blue-dyed pandanus sarong, with 
women carrying her baskets of offerings. Her 
face is oval and olive in complexion with just the 
gilt of gold. She’s a thoroughbred. I’ll wager, 
from the train of her pandanus gown up to the 
top of her hair^ 

Alas ! the hair and the eyes always stopped my 
ravings. Always the eyes were oblong in shape, 
and brown and brilliant as coalesced lacquer. Al- 
ways the hair was black as the deepest danau 
swamp. And — must I admit it? — I was looking 
for hair of the color of raw gold, and for lazuli 
eyes, Egyptian eyes, eyes like Cleopatra had! I 
was looking for the golden-haired poa-poa 
bearer. 

Yes, I was in love. For the first time in my 
life, I was spinning helplessly in that whirlpool of 
joys and jealousies, of hopes and of heart-qualms 
that is called Love. I was in love with the poa- 
poa bearer — a woman more beautiful than my 
fondest day-dream, than any dream! Picture 
every perfection of physical attraction combined 
in one full-blown willowy form and you cannot, 


THE STRANGE STORY 


72 

even then, visualize the wondrously beautiful 
woman who had greeted me upon my entrance 
into the Jallan Batoe! 

Yet I knew, quite as soon as I felt the first 
fluttering of love, that mine was neither an ordi- 
nary love-affair nor an ordinary situation for a 
love-affair. Altogether it was a paradoxical case. 
She had my heart and mind in her power by her 
wondrous womanly charms ; she had my body and 
life in her power by her apparent leadership of 
the Poonan, now my hosts, but any time it might 
prove, my captors. 

I did not stop to consider that. I did not stop 
to consider that I needed a sober head, a selfish 
heart, a steady sure hand to win to the Green, 
Green God — and civilization. I did not stop, even, 
to consider her different race, her undoubtedly 
exalted position among the Poonan, her eye-daz- 
zling beauty. I considered nothing — nothing, I 
tell you, save and except that I loved her ! 

Desire cankered my heart. I was mad with de- 
sire. I desired her more even than I desired the 
Green, Green God! 

All that morn, I searched the lovely face of 
each woman in that tireless throng. One glimpse 
of my poa-poa bearer, and I felt the desire that 
cankered my heart would be soothed, assuaged. 
I searched till my eyeballs fairly ached in their 
sockets. She was not among them. All morning, 
through shriveling noon — and she did not come 1 

And then, as the tumultuous disappointment in 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


73 

my heart was growing apace with the constant 
arrival of more beautiful women, with the in- 
creasing blasting heat of the early afternoon, the 
Golden Women close about me fell back to give 
passage to a woman whose long rainbow-tinted 
train of peacock-feather gown was upheld by 
female attendants and whose many baskets of 
offerings were borne by youngish men. 

For a breath — so fine, so exquisitely elegant 
was that woman — my eyes betrayed me. I 
thought indeed, for that breath, she was my 
golden-haired, turquoise-eyed poa-poa bearer. 
But no ! Her hair was like that of all the other 
Golden Women — an interwoven jungle of black 
tresses. 

Yet, while she was like the other Golden 
Women, she was unlike them. There was some- 
thing subtly proud, almost haughty, about the tilt 
of her nose. That nose, chiseled so sensitively 
thin it seemed, in the torchlight, almost a trans- 
parent olive-white, came down in a straight line, 
without notch, from her low round forehead. 
It was an imperious nose, just such a nose as that 
which the Romans loved to carve on the head of 
Minerva. It gave to the Golden Woman’s beau- 
teous face the same prophetic, but imperious and 
arrogant look, so inseparable from the head of 
that Roman goddess of wisdom and war. 

I can’t explain it, really; but somehow she 
seemed more beautiful, if such could be, than the 
other women — and they all were beautiful! Yet 


THE STRANGE STORY 


74 

hers was not an opulent beauty. There was that 
about her — in her almond-shaped eyes, her im- 
perious nose, in the thin cruelty of her red lips — 
which bespoke all the delicately constituted beauty 
of the Orient. 

Slimmer she was than the poa-poa bearer — 
slim as a palm tree and quite that upstanding in 
lofty carriage. Her breasts were not full-blown, 
not nearly so luxuriant as those of the poa-poa 
bearer; under the clinging outlining gauze of 
brilliant peacock plumes, her breasts were like 
awakening tender buds. Still, she was no younger 
than my gentle conductress of the night. Indeed, 
to judge from her eyes rather than from her softly 
flowering golden torso, she was older, more sati- 
ated with life. 

In the Orient, you must know, there are just 
two types of womankind. One type blows rich 
and luscious, as an orchid putting out overnight, 
and then shrivels and withers away in the years as 
an orchid does in the sun. The other type never 
blooms to its full and hence never cloys, but goes 
on through the years forever giving the lie, in ap- 
pearance, to those years. 

She was of that type, that never full-blown type 
— the type of Oriental woman ever young. And 
that is a feline type which sheathes its strength as 
a cat does her claws. An unwholesome type, al- 
ways young in limb and torso, but ever, ever old 
in crafty knowledge, in the light that lies in the 
eyes. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


75 

That light was in her eyes. Brown were her 
eyes, an even darker brown than were those of 
the other Golden Women. In the flicker from the 
innumerable torches, her eyes gleamed almost a 
black, as with the duskiness of a kind of illimit- 
able, unsearchable depth. And they gleamed, 
those eyes, from between almond-shaped lids 
which had a slant to them that was not nice to 
see, that seemed evil ! 

Evil were the eyes themselves! That was the 
light in them. Evil and wise and old with a sort 
of intuitive cunning, the inscrutableness of the 
East 1 They were Chinese eyes, wicked eyes, eyes 
that gleamed malignantly, in the torch-sputterings, 
as the courtesan Thais’ must have gleamed when 
she looked upon the city she had burned; and eyes, 
too, that seemed in the sputtering of the torches, 
to be hazy with stifled passion, just as those of 
Salome must have been when she craved of Herod 
the head of John the Baptist! 

She slipped toward me, did that wickedly beau- 
tiful woman, between the Golden Women hud- 
dled to either side, her clinging gown of silky, 
finely-woven, polychrome peacock plumes accen- 
tuating, rather than concealing, the slim lines and 
feline grace of her form. I remember I could 
hear, as she glided up to me, the jingle of the 
anklets of gold bangles on her feet; and I even 
could see, flickering beneath the hem of her bril- 
liant gown, those small arched golden feet, loosely 
strapped in cogon sandals. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


76 

She came quite close to me, her breath fanning 
my face, her skin, in the torch-light, of an olive 
tint, flecked with gold glimmers and glowing with 
a faint rose underneath the soft velvet curve of 
each cheek. She felt of my hair and looked into 
my eyes, and through and through me, with her 
own evil Chinese eyes. 

Seek laha wook!^* she murmured in a voice 
that was a surprise to me — so silky, caressing, al- 
most like a murmurous purr it was: “Hair red 
as blood! Eyes blue as the sky! ” 

Her tendrils of fingers enmeshed themselves in 
my red beard. As though the better to see that 
beard, she tossed back from about her face her 
jungle of black hair — blue-black and glossy now 
in the light of the torches — so that it flowed in 
shiny snaky undulations from her low round fore- 
head down her back to a point below her waist. 
Then and all of a sudden, she gave that beard a 
tremendous yank 1 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


77 


CHAPTER IX 

TELLS WHY HYDE LEARNED TO FEAR 
THE HIGH PRIESTESS, LIP-PLAK- 
TENGGA 

A thousand pains tore the skin of my face. 
(Hyde felt his red halo of beard reminiscently, 
tenderly!) I leaped afoot off the couch, my 
mouth jerked open, my jaw sagging, quivering, 
from the jar of that tremendous yank. I was be- 
side myself with pain, with the shock of a com- 
plete hideous surprise, and with perhaps, a cer- 
tain rage. 

“ Gripes 1 ” I sputtered in English, lapsing with 
rage into my mother tongue and rubbing my thou- 
sand-pricked face frantically. “ What do you 
mean ! What do you mean by pulling my beard 1 
Don’t you believe that beard is mine! You 
damned sneaky cat, do you think it’s false ! ” 

But low to the flooring before me, she was bow- 
ing nine times. 

Arre! ” she purred in that silky tone. “ It is 
the Man-Child of Genghis Khan ! It is the Send- 
ing of the Sword! Ahe!^^ 

I felt like leaping, worn shoes and all, upon her 
bobbing jungle of hair. I could feel my toes tens- 
ing in their shreds of leather. I was beside myself 
with overmastering rage. But I got a grip on 


78 THE STRANGE STORY 

myself. I stood, helplessly choking with rage, and 
watched her. 

An ominous doubt went thudding through my 
aching head. She had pulled my beard intention- 
ally, almost it seemed maliciously. Well now, as 
I watched her, it struck me that there was 
something like mockery in her purring words, 
something like a kind of mock gravity in the 
way she was bowing her black snaky tresses of 
hair. I began to know fear of that woman. 

“ She’s like a tiger-cat, just as I called her in my 
rage,” I said to myself. “ She’s like a sleek, slink- 
ing beautiful tiger-cat! She’s doubtful of me. 
That I know from that yank on my beard. I’ll 
bet she’s here to attempt to wile my secrets out 
of me!” 

Fear lent black wings to my imagination. 
Maybe she knew already, I thought, that I was 
not the Man-Child of Genghis Khan — whoever 
that Man-Child was. Maybe she could see 
through me, see that I was only Willyum Hyde, an 
orchid-seeking Englishman. Fear lent me caution. 
I would keep a firm check on myself, I resolved, 
and stomach all my curiosity about the Poonan, 
about who I was supposed to be. I would not let 
her find me out. I could not afford to let her, of 
all women, know I was after the Green, Green 
God! 

With a sharp regret for the bold words I had 
uttered upon my entrance into the Jallan Batoe, 
and then, upon the heels of that, a hope that she 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 79 

had not been among the women of the night be- 
fore, I sat me down on the sacred pehang skin 
upon the couch, and waited. 

The woman rose up, with serpentine flexures, 
after the nine kowtows. She motioned, with a 
commanding sweep of one gold-banded arm, the 
youngish men carrying her baskets of offerings, to 
draw closer to me. 

They did so, opening the rattan-woven lehets 
to display an appetizing feast of succulent pigs’ 
meat and of kwe-kwe or cakes, made of yellow 
jungle maize and smeared temptingly with ghee, 
a sort of luscious oil drawn from butter and 
clarified by boiling. 

The imperiously beautiful woman sidled against 
me once more, rubbing like a cat so close to me 
that I could feel, through the thin transparency of 
her feathery gown, the glowing warmth of her 
golden-limbed body. Looking down at me out of 
inscrutable brown eyes, downy now as with the 
haze of some hot emotion, she purred in Poonan : 

“ Eat, O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good ! ” And she lifted her proud head, with a 
gleam of her eyes, as though the words were a 
command. 

Long had my stomach urged me, with a gnaw- 
ing insistence, to sample the offerings of food; but 
I had been afraid, for no sound reason, of ipo 4 po, 
some hidden Poonan poison. Now, however, at 
those words of command, that imperious toss of 
her head, but more than else, that gleam of her 


8o 


THE STRANGE STORY 


evil eyes, I realized that, in order to play out my 
hand, I would have to overcome all fears of poi- 
son, and eat. I made to reach down, therefore, 
for one of the buttered cakes. 

But at my action, one of her women attendants 
was before me, offering a cake to me. As I lifted 
it to my lips, still warmly moist as it was from the 
oven, an inspirational thought clicked into my 
brain : Why not learn something of this evil-eyed 
beauty? 

Why not? There could be no harm in that, 
providing I did it politely, with affected gallantry. 
And certainly, if I made her talk of herself and 
her people, she would not then have much oppor- 
tunity to question me. That was it ! I would ques- 
tion her. I would turn the tables on her. 

“ But,” I asked artfully in Poonan, ere I tasted 
that soft cake, “ may I not know to whom I am 
indebted for this food? ” 

“ To all the Poonan,” she said with a haughty 
nod of her head toward the onlooking men and 
women. 

“But these cakes?” I persevered. 

“Oh, to Lip-Plak-Tengga ^^ — her thin cruel 
lips curled slightly in a smile — “ to me. Flower of 
the Silver Star, High Priestess of the Poonan and 
of the Green, Green God ! ” 

There it was again: the Green, Green God! 
How I longed to ask her more of that Green, 
Green God ! But I could not. I did not know, but 
I greatly feared, that she had made that very 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


8i 


statement merely to lead me on to ask questions, 
to show my ignorance of the Poonan ; in a word, to 
betray myself. 

I tell you, I was quite fearful now of that 
woman. There was that in the fitful gleamings 
of her Chinese eyes — something so doubting of 
me, so sharply persistingly probing — which belied 
altogether the silkiness of her tones, the catlike 
caress of her movements, and made me realize, 
more and more strongly, that I would do well to 
keep a tight mouth on myself. 

Wherefore, to turn the conversation to some- 
thing which, so far as I could see, would work my 
case no injury, and which, even more than the 
Green, Green God, was uppermost at that moment 
in my mind, I said: 

“ But that golden-haired poa-poa bearer last 
night — I thought she had all to do with the 
Poonan and the Green, Green God? ” 

“ Ah,” she assented — ‘‘ with the Poonan, yes.” 
Then with a disdainful toss of her head and a 
faint, but vexed knuckling of her low olive brow : 
“ But with the Green, Green God, nda, nda! I 
am the High Priestess of the God, of the Menac- 
ing Mandau of Genghis Khan, of all the jewels 
and of the whole sacred Stone Dobol She ” — and 
there was a sort of scornful envy in her silky 
voice — “ well, she is the Orlok Radenajo of the 
Poonan.” 

^^Orlokf” I repeated. I knew that in Malay 
radenajo means the wife of a rajah, of a king; it 


82 


THE STRANGE STORY 


might mean, in a far-fetched way, an unmarried 
woman ruler. I hoped that last was so. But I 
was not sure. Orlok was the word that caused the 
doubt in my mind. It was a word entirely new to 
me. Never had I met up with it in either the 
Malay or Dyak language, or any dialect of those 
languages. 

But the High Priestess was speaking. 

“Yes,” she was saying; Orlok Radenajo of 
the Poonan. Orlok is one of the few words of 
our fathers’ tongue that still lingers with us 
since our fathers left, in tempo doelo (olden 
times) the Land of Tartary where the golden 
rhubarb grows and where the Men-Children of 
Genghis Khan still rule the world as the Lords of 
Lords. To us, as to our fathers, it means mar- 
shal of soldiers. And Belun-Mea Poa-Poa is the 
Marshal Queen of the Golden People.” 

Belun-Mea Poa-Poaf^^ I said after her, 
mouthing the name of my lovely loved one as 
though it were some delicious morsel, and repeat- 
ing in that last compound name the Dyak word 
which means both flame and fire. “ How beauti- 
ful! Golden Feather of Flame! But — but is she 
married? ” 

The Priestess shook her head emphatically and 
a whit sulkily, I thought. Then, as though in 
haste to divert me from a subject distasteful to 
her, she said quickly: 

N da, nda; she is not married. No man ever 
has kissed her. But take some meat, take some 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 83 

meat, Man-Child ! ” And she motioned one of 
the youngish men to hand me a pig’s foot. 

My teeth had no sooner sunk into the soft, 
juicy meat, however, than I became alive to the 
fact that it was saltless, almost tasteless. I looked 
about. There was no salt, nor any receptacle for 
salt, to be seen. 

“ What do you do for salt, Lip-Plak~Tengga? 

I asked. “ I should imagine, if you Poonan eat 
meat daily without the use of salt, you would be 
attacked by all manner of scorbutic complaints — 
livid spots and all the horrors of scurvy.” 

She laughed between those cruel lips — a gay 
rippling laugh. 

Hung! ” she said sharply to one of her men. 

The slit-eyed fellow came toward me, holding 
a hung or stone gourd. I thought, at first, that 
it contained some concoction of honey or natural 
wine or other native liquor. It smelled malodor- 
ously enough. But when I tasted it, I knew it for 
sulphur water. 

“ That’s the reason,” explained the Priestess, 
“ why the Golden Folk are not affected with 
scurvy, even though year in and year out, we never 
use what you call salt. We grow and use pepper; 
and we get this sulphur water from a spring in 
the volcanic rock of the Jallan Batoe.” 

‘‘ I’ve got it,” I smiled. “ You make it serve 
as a makeshift for salt. It’s the pound of cure 
against the ounce of prevention, to twist the adage. 
And it tastes that badly too ! ” 


84 THE STRANGE STORY 

She laughed again at my sally. Her lids 
widened till they lost their evil curve ; her brown 
eyes gleamed almost honestly. Seemingly she had 
vaulted into a good humor. Seeing that, I broke 
off to ask a question that, to speak plainly, was 
bothering me. 

“But tell me,” I asked: “why doesn’t she 
come to me? Golden Feather of Flame, I mean. 
I have been anxiously watching for her all 
day.” 

Very seriously, she looked down at me. She 
looked down at me from between tight, partly 
closed lids for a long time — as if indeed she were 
trying to read my innermost thoughts. Slowly, 
questioningly, she repeated: 

“ You — you have been wavching for her, and 
anxiously, all day?” 

I nodded with some vehemence. 

“ O Man-Child of Genghis Khan,” she said 
simply, “ you are in love ! ” Then with an odd 
irritating laugh: “Yes; in love with our Orlok 
Radenajo, Golden Feather of Flame ! ” 

I bowed my head in dumb assent, but more to 
hide the warm color suffusing my bearded face. 
It was surely so. I was in love. That supreme 
passion had come to me at last, unwished-for, un- 
bidden, altogether unexpected. Subtly, deliciously, 
at my first sight of the poa-poa bearer, it had 
entered my heart. And it was coiling tight and 
tighter about my heartstrings, overwhelming me, 
choking me with sublime passion. I tell you, no 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 85 

mortal woman ever can fill her place in my heart. 
Even to-day, after twelve long years, I am pas- 
sionately, utterly in love with that golden-haired, 
green-eyed Marshal Queen! 

Thinking thus — a whirling maelstrom of love- 
tortured thought — I did not look up again, but 
only down at my big working hands. The High 
Priestess before me must have taken that as a 
sign of dismissal. She made to turn away. But 
with a hand on a blue-ringed feather of her downy 
gown, I halted her. 

“ Listen,” I said tensely, chancing all. “ Why 
did you yank my beard? ” 

That question, startling in itself, was the more 
startling in the abrupt directness with which I 
put it. That question startled her out of her poise. 
Her face flamed and paled, flamed and paled, the 
while she looked down at me narrowly. Then, 
suddenly, she drew herself together — drew her- 
self up so that she was as a tower of ivory. 

“ I thought it was false,” she said quite calmly. 
“ I thought yours was a false beard, just like the 
false beards which my Priests wear when they 
masquerade as old antus in the devil-devil dances. 
I doubted that you were the Man-Child of Genghis 
Khan. That is why I pulled your beard. I 
thought you were only an Orang Mohong^ a 
White Man!” 

My hands gripped the rush-fibers of the couch 
beneath me. I was shocked, speechless. But 
without pausing, without apparently noticing my 


86 THE STRANGE STORY 

dismay, she went on speaking, her words vibrant 
now with a certain ring of certitude. 

“ Yes; I thought you were a White Man, just 
like all those other footsore and ragged ones who 
came in here before you, and tried to steal the 
Green, Green God, and were tortured until they 
died! They came, those White Men, in tempo 
doelo; one, two, three, four White Men; and one 
was tall and the others short, but all were black 
of hair. We thought all White Men were black- 
haired. 

“ And then you come, and you have red hair, a 
red beard and blue eyes. Belun-Mea Poa-Poa 
saw your red hair, your red beard, your blue eyes, 
and therefore and thereupon she proclaimed you 
the Man-Child we have been told would come. 
All the Poonan believed you were that Man- 
Child. But I doubted that you were the Man- 
Child of Genghis Khan. I alone doubted. I 
doubted so much I pulled your beard. Your 
beard is not false, I know now; it is your own; 
but then you may have dyed it with some red 
stain 1 ” 

There was a challenge in her last statement. I 
ignored it. I thought only of those four white 
men who had preceded me into the Jallan Batoe — 
Dutchmen, Englishmen, Portuguese or what not, 
but each and every one of them a white man like 
myself! I thought, with a kind of horror, of their 
fate. Their fate might prove a warning and a les- 
son to me, if I could but learn the manner of it. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 87 

Wherefore to learn the manner of it, I asked a 
question : 

‘‘ But those strange white men? What brought 
them here ? What did they do ” 

“ Do? They did nothing. It was what they 
tried to do ! The first three came, one after the 
other, and were given food and were treated as 
honored guests. But one after the other, each in 
his turn tried to steal the Green, Green God. I 
do not know why they tried to steal the God. 
These Orang Mohong seem mad with desire for 
the God. Their eyes burn with love when they 
see our women, but when they see our Green, 
Green God, their eyes burn with a greater 
love ! 

“ The Green, Green God must have some enor- 
mous worth, some mystic potence, out in the 
World of White Men; for always, no matter how 
royally we treated them, those White Men tried 
to steal that God. After the treachery of the 
first three, we trusted them no more. We killed 
those first three, each in his turn, very suddenly, 
as they crept to the Doho in the dark night. The 
fourth and last man we tortured — tortured at 
once, ere ever he saw the God. I was only a 
child then, but I remember to this day how he 
screamed and jabbered in some unknown tongue ! ” 

I shivered all over. The High Priestess noted 
that. She made a wry mouth. 

“It is terrible, yes; but why should we talk 
about it? You are no Orang Mohong! You 


88 


THE STRANGE STORY 


would not steal the God ! You are the Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan ! ” 

Ah, now we were getting on to a desire I I 
looked up at her; I looked up at her quite seri- 
ously. 

Ltp-Plak-Tengga,** I said slowly, earnestly, 
“ why — why in the world do you call me the Man- 
Ch ” 

I stopped. Her wicked Chinese eyes stopped 
me. There was in those eyes, then and of a sud- 
den, a blazing triumphant look. It was as though, 
inwardly and already, she were rejoicing over lead- 
ing me to disclose myself. I was sure, right then, 
she still doubted me ; and right then, I changed my 
words, saying: 

“ Why in the world do you call yourselves the 
Golden People? How is it your skins are so fair, 
in all this sun, with just the glint of gold? ” 

As one closes one’s eyes under the pain of a 
headache, so the evil curve of her lids drooped 
over her eyes; and two little vertical wrinkles of 
annoyance, at the simplicity, the sheer harmless- 
ness of my question, appeared above her imperi- 
ous nose. But she kept control of her disappoint- 
ment, otherwise, remarkably well. The lids 
slanted open, but the eyes between once more 
were inscrutable. 

“ Oh,” she explained, with affected carelessness, 
“ that is because we dwell in these caves in the 
stones, hidden from the hot rays. Our skin is not 
burned brown by the Bornean sun, but is, as you 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


89 

see, of a fair yellowish tinge, like the sheen of gold. 
The color of the skin marks certain prescribed 
estates among us, and there are several estates. 
Golden Feather of Flame is of the supreme estate 
— that of the rulers, the Orlok Radenajos — and 
her skin, as you must have seen, is white as cream, 
save for a slight shading of gold. I am of the 
next estate, the Priestesses. The higher caste a 
woman is in birth and riches, the more we stay in 
the caves hidden from the sun, so as to make and 
keep our skin a light golden hue.” 

I jumped to a conclusion. As with the Chinese 
women and their mutilated little feet, I thought, 
so with these women of the Poonan; they had to 
suffer the darkness of the caves in order to etiolate 
their skin as fair as the ordained hue of their 
caste. 

No doubt, my mind went on, that was the very 
reason why the golden-haired Marshal Queen 
could not come to me. She could not chance burn- 
ing and browning her creamy skin by walking 
under the blistering rays of the mid-afternoon 
sun. 

“ But when will I see her?” I asked; then at 
the Priestess’ quizzical surprised lift of the eye- 
lids, I added: I mean, of course, your Queen, 

Golden Feather of Flame! When will I see her 
in her white, white gown?” 

Her lids curved into slits of wickedness, her 
eyes gleamed maliciously. 

“White, white gown?” she repeated. “And 


90 THE STRANGE STORY 

you don’t know what white means to us? O Man- 
Child of Genghis Khan, with the Poonan, as with 
our Tartar fathers, white is ever the sign of 
mourning! ” 

“Mourning!” 

“ Ahe! ” she nodded. “ When we heard you 
were coming along the lava path. Golden Feather 
of Flame dressed in mourning and met you with 
a tambatong poa-poa in her hand, to drive you 
away as a bad antu, a White Man. And even 
now, because of your coming — you with the red 
hair and blue eyes — Belun-Mea Poa-Poa is mourn- 
ing in the Glowing Dobof But you shall see her 
soon enough, O Man-Child of Genghis! Ahe/ 
Soon enough ! ” 

With those words, so like a veiled threat, and 
an exasperating little laugh, she backed away, bow- 
ing low nine times with a kind of mock gravity. 
Then, to a jingling accompaniment from her gold 
anklet-bangles which sounded like a teasing echo 
of her laughter, she disappeared through the niche 
of doorway. 

I sat upon the sacred pehang skin, cross-legged 
and stunned. Over and over again, one thought 
kept hurtling through my brain. 

“ Golden Feather of Flame mourning because 
of my coming! But why? What have I done? 
Come to think of it, there was terror in her voice 
last night when she discovered that my hair was 
red, my eyes blue ! Can it be — can it be there is 
some hidden reason to fear me ? Or is it that she 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 91 

fears that Sending of the Sword they all speak 
of?’’ 

I did not know. I hardly knew whether to be- 
lieve Flower of the Silver Star or not. But one 
thing I did know. There was every good rea- 
son for me to be wary of that evil-eyed High 
Priestess. i 

“ She doubts me,” I muttered. “ Of all the 
Poonan, she alone doubts me. The Poonan do not 
know there are red-haired white men out in the 
world because it so happened that, of the four 
white men who came before me, all were black- 
haired. Of course, in the white race, there are 
not so many red-haired men as there are black- 
haired men — the ratio is about six dark men to 
every one blond ; but it was inevitable that, sooner 
or later, a red-haired white man should enter the 
Jallan Batoe. 

“ I am that inevitable red-haired white man. 
Therefore, because I am red-haired and because I 
am almost as tropics-saffroned as the Poonan 
themselves, the Poonan do not think I am a white 
man. They think I am that red-haired, blue-eyed 
man whose coming, for some mysterious reason, 
they seem to have been awaiting. They stand in 
awe of me. They reverence me. They believe I 
am the Man-Child of Genghis Khan, whoever 
that Man-Child is. 

“ But how long, how long, before the Poonan 
will discover their mistake, awake to the truth? 
How long before they will do to me what they did 


92 THE STRANGE STORY 

to those other four white men? Already Lip- 
Plak-Tengga doubts me. Already she thinks that 
I am a white man and that I am after the Green, 
Green God!” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


93 


CHAPTER X 

IN WHICH WONDER PILES UPON WON- 
DER’S HEAD, UNTIL I HEAR OF 
THAT GREATEST WONDER OF ALL^ 
THE STONE DOBO 

I was alone (said Hyde) . The lessening of the 
heat wave that had shriveled me through the day 
told me, even in the continual torch-flickering half- 
dark of my cave, that sunset was approaching. 
And a sound in the air — the sound of regular, 
though naked, footfalls — told me, further, that 
someone was coming up either stairway of the 
Elephant Stone. 

I got off the couch straightway, stretched my 
legs, cramped and lifeless as they were from 
squatting upon them throughout most of the day, 
and strode out, blinking my eyes, into the bright 
but empty horseshoe-shaped corridor. Where- 
upon I realized from whom that sound of flapping 
footfalls came. It was the guard of honor who 
had left off patrolling before the foot of each 
flight of nine stairs. As at a signal, simultane- 
ously, they appeared — two short-muscled yellow- 
ish-skinned slit-eyed men— in either gaping arched 
entrance. 

With heads thrown back, they stood rigidly for 
a space looking up at the rim of the crater far. 


94 THE STRANGE STORY 

far above. The last segment of that flaming ball 
of sun must have dipped out of sight, as they 
looked, behind that ragged rim; for, of a sudden, 
like the boom of a sunset gun, the butts of their 
sumpitans rang echoingly upon the stone flooring. 

They swiveled. They faced me. 

“O Mopeng-Lon of Genghis, Toewan Baik/' 
rumbled, with a deep bow, the man at the farther 
entrance — the entrance on the right-hand side 
toward the Stone Doho; “ O Man-Child of Gen- 
ghis, the Great and Good — kehd; come ! ” 

It was a command, if a deferential com- 
mand. 

“But whither?” I debated with myself. 
“Which way will you two lead me — out of the 
Jallan Batoe to get lost and die on its jungled 
slopes, or farther into the maze of monster stones? 
And if farther into that maze — why, where, for 
what? What’s awaiting me, anyhow?” 

The guard standing at the entrance by which 
I first had come into the cave, at that moment 
came marching toward me — marching slowly, his 
long sumpitan over his left shoulder, his mandau^ 
drawn from the jawat and poised in his right 
hand, the thick blunt concave back pressed against 
his nose as in a kind of salute of respect, of rever- 
ence. 

I understood then. I was supposed to follow the 
other guard, the guard at the farther entrance — 
the entrance toward the Stone Doho. That was 
it; I debated no longer; for they were leading me. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


95 

I comprehended in a flash, toward that selfsame 
Stone Doho! 

I turned. With one squat guard before and 
one behind, and me, like a king in state, towering 
in the center, we left that Elephant Stone. 

It took us only a trice of time to get out of that 
Elephant Stone; yet, in that trice of time, tropic 
night had swooped down, swiftly and suddenly, 
like some black hawk out of the sky. About me, 
as on the previous night, once again all was black- 
ness — a solid inky blackness, more solid and more 
inky where the huge stones bulked. 

With one guard behind and one before, as I said, 
we went down that broad grassy avenue between 
the feathery black dusters of palms and the blacker 
shapes of the stones. We were making, I had no 
doubt now, for the Stone Dobo, that largest stone 
of all on the border of the Danau — a gleaming 
dazzling white in all the blackness. To me, so 
far away it was, that stone looked like a hideously 
fanciful shape, half human, half animal, like and 
yet unlike the Sphinx — a gigantic gargoyle glow- 
ing with a weird white light against that black 
drop of swamp. 

The wave of heat which had held through the 
day, had lessened perceptibly; the early evening 
air was almost chill. I could feel that chill. I 
shivered. But I shivered not only with that chill. 
I shivered more because of a state of mind, of my 
whole being. 

This business of being under guard — even 


96 THE STRANGE STORY 

though it was a guard of honor — of marching 
through thick blackness, in grim silence, between 
stones that bulked up like black beasts on either 
side of me and between palms, nearer hand, 
the feathery plumes of which draggled motionless, 
black and dead, and all toward a monster rock 
that glowed weirdly, uncannily, was getting my 
nerves. I tell you, with all that I had gone 
through and still was going through, but espe- 
cially the terrible uncertainty of it all, my nerves 
were frayed into threads dangling from my frame- 
work, live and raw! 

Well now, with an abruptness that alone would 
have alarmed me — had I not also thought that it 
came only in the chill hours before dawn — rose 
in the pitchy blackness that monstrous singing of 
the stones! In a jiffy, all about me was sound, 
startling shattering sound. The sun-dried fronds 
of the palms on either hand waved, as in a wind, 
and rubbed against one another with grating 
sounds until they resembled nothing so much as 
gallows-trees, weighed and crackling with bones. 
Farther back, those black beasts of stones vibrated 
and actually seemed to move with the hum. In 
all that blackness, the whole night boomed like a 
great hollow drum! 

I stopped dead in my tracks. Like a chill wind, 
that hum swept through my body and set every 
dangling nerve on my framework dancing and 
tingling like a toothache. I was beside myself 
with sickening fear. I swung on the guard behind. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


97 

“ I won’t go on ! ” I shouted in Poonan. “ I 
won’t go on, beneath that awful overtone of 
sound, between those shaking stones, those grat- 
ing gallows-trees of palms ! I heard it last night 
— all through the dawn. I never expected it now. 
I thought it was only before dawn. I won’t go on 
till I know! When does that awful hum come? 
For Deewa^s sake, tell me when it comes ! ” 

The guard behind bowed low to the grass — I 
could see him bow, despite the blackness, he was so 
close to me. He lifted again the concave back of 
his sword against his nose. 

“ O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good I ” he shouted to make himself heard — “ be 
at peace I In the chill of dawn, and the short chill 
of eventide only, do the Souls of Men Who 
Would-Have-Been wail out, in this awful song, 
their misery at their fate. It is spon over. Li4iat; 
look I ” And with his sword, he pointed above. 

Far, far above, within the vast roundness of the 
crater’s rim, appeared almost as I looked upward, 
a single silver star. And as I looked down again, 
the air of the Jallan Batoe seemed somehow, if 
faintly, to warm. The awful singing of the stones 
sobbed and sobbed away into silence 1 

Everything became, in a trice, just as before — 
solid inky blackness, the feathery plumes of the 
palms draggling black and dead, the whole Jallan 
Batoe still as solemnity. 

In a fullness of wonder, as though it alone had 
caused all that sudden change, I looked up again 


98 THE STRANGE STORY 

at that solitary silver star, dipping and sailing 
and vanishing for breathing intervals behind wisps 
of clouds that were like fine white laces. Then I 
turned away. 

Baik/* I said. “ It is good.” And with one 
guard before and one behind, I walked on and on 
down that velvety avenue. 

And now, in that solemn stillness, breathing 
ghostily into my ears, I became aware of the slow 
beating of tomtoms and of the drone of many sing- 
songing voices. Out of the black vault of night 
seemed to come that eery drone. It rose and fell 
and hung for nervous moments on certain odd 
notes. It was like some death chant, weird and 
unearthly. 

I looked ahead. I looked ahead and there, not 
so far away, I saw that white glowing monster 
stone. White it was as the finest marble from 
Carrara or Jeypore. Yet it was not made of 
marble. It was made of some mineral, some rare 
mineral white as frosted ice, the name, constitu- 
tion or geological era of which I have been unable 
to discover. But I have two good guesses. It 
was either some tengga hoentoet, or tail of the 
star, as the Dyaks call meteoric stones chuted 
down from blazing comets; or it was some car- 
boniferous formation laid down in the Paleozoic 
Age and spat to the surface, from the hot core of 
the earth, some time during the active life of the 
now extinct volcano. 

As we drew nearer, it struck me that that mon- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


99 

ster stone seemed luminous as a star, with a glow 
in the very white substance of it. Then I saw that 
that glow was not in the rock itself, but came from 
a series of slits, or slim apertures, in the rock. 
Every one of those slits glowed, as though behind 
in the heart of that stone a thousand torches 
flamed and smoked. 

There, verily, was the reason for the uncanny 
brightness of that stone in all the darkness ! Like 
white fingers, the light from those thousand 
torches shot through the slits, reflected on the 
whiteness of the stone and thus illuminated the 
blackness all about. And just as that light shot 
through those slits, just so did that death chant 
seem to wail through those slits from the very 
heart of the stone. 

“ Surely, from the heart of it ! ” I surmised. 
“ That heart is a cave-temple — the Stone Dobo, 
even as my green-eyed Marshal Queen said ! ” 

But it was more, even, than that. As we drew 
yet near and nearer and the glow from within 
reflected on the whiteness of that monster stone, so 
that it lighted our faces and brightened the black- 
ness, the palms, the stones, the Danau — everything 
adjacent to it — I saw that it was, indeed, a wonder 
of the world! 

That monster mass of stone was carved, won- 
drously carved, like a Sphinx with the body of an 
animal and the face and marble breasts of a beau- 
tiful woman. Only there was a difference. In- 
stead of the body of a lion, as in the Sphinx, this 


lOO 


THE STRANGE STORY 


animal body, outlined from the immense stone in 
high-relief, was that of a flowing-maned upstand- 
ing horse! 

“ A horse ! ” I could not help exclaiming. 

That is strange for Borneo ! A horse is a Euro- 
pean animal, though it originally came from Cen- 
tral Asia. But a horse up here in the very entrails 
of Borneo, in the fastness of this isolated crater 1 
Why, I thought such an animal would be as strange 
to these Poonan as horses were to the Aztecs of 
Montezuma when Cortez and his adventurers 
came to Mexico like centaurs out of the sea ! ” 

Now, in that monster block of stone between the 
outlines of the forefeet of the half horse, half 
woman, was a deep vast doorway of rectangular 
shape — wider than it was high — with nine pillars 
set in on either side, upholding the cope of the 
doorway and carved bodily out of the white 
block. 

Leading up to that great doorway were many, 
many flights of stairs. They were spaced nine 
stairs to a flight with a deep flat landing between 
each flight. A hundred men could stand side by 
side along the width of any one of those stairs; a 
thousand, I’ll wager, on any landing! Carved out 
of the white block of stone, those stairs were as 
broad and deep and altogether as spacious as a 
cathedral stairs. The whole white block of 
stone was a wonderful, preterhuman example of 
carving. 

I whistled my awe. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


lOI 


Damme ! ” I said. “ This is no chance work 
of nature. No; theyVe carved this magnificent 
Stone Dobo out of the glowing rock! They’re 
like the Egyptians, these Poonan. TheyVe carved 
all these huge stones and the huge caves in the 
stones ! ” 

With one guard in front and one following 
closely, I mounted those nine flights of stairs to 
the increasing sound of the tomtoms and the sing- 
song. I thought I never would reach the top. 
I bent down once, I remember, and felt the stone 
of a stair. It was neither warm nor cold; yet it 
was nearly as slippery as ice. I saw then that 
those stairs had been worn so smooth by the knees 
of a multitude of worshipers I 

At last, we stood between the pillars that, nine 
on either side, upheld the heavy cope of the deep 
doorway. Before us was a great door divided into 
two parts, and from behind that double door 
seemed to come the death chant. That double 
door held my eyes. It was made of narra^ a stout 
species of fine mahogany. It was paneled, and 
each panel was carved with many designs like an 
old Spanish cathedral door. In the glow from the 
white pillars and the white stone of the deep door- 
way, I could make out those designs. They were 
all of men; men in armor of buffalo hides and steel 
and silver and gold; men armed with curving 
mandaus, leaden maces, long bows and arrows, 
shields and tomtoms and slender toemhas or 
lances ; men close grouped in nine hordes — a mul- 


102 


THE STRANGE STORY 


titude of men; and all, all mounted on horses! 

“ It’s intentional,” I thought. “ This repetition 
of the figures of horses is intentional. And the 
carving of this monster glowing Stone Doho into a 
cross between a Sphinx and a Centaur — into an 
effigy half woman, half horse — is no haphazard 
flight of mythology or imagination. It also is 
intentional. Some time back in the bleak begin- 
nings of the world, these Poonan have had much 
to do with horses ! ” 

Then, like a blow in the face, the truth smote me. 
The High Priestess, Flower of the Silver Star, had 
said the Poonan had come, hundreds of years be- 
fore, from “ the Land of Tartary where the golden 
rhubarb grows ” ! Invariably, they all called me 
“ the Man-Child of Genghis Khan ” ! That ex- 
plained the horses. They were Tartars — descend- 
ants from the finest horsemen who ever lived, who 
ate and slept and fought on horses, and who, on 
horses, under the leadership of Genghis and Kub- 
lai Khan, had swept the round world like a red 
scourge ! 

They were descendants from the Tartars of 
that very period of which Ser Marco Polo, the 
Venetian, wrote so well. I remembered, in a vivid 
flash, my Polo of schooldays, and all its wonder- 
ful voluminous notes. I looked again at those 
designs. Surely enough, here was final conclu- 
sive evidence as to the Tartar ancestry of the 
Poonan. Behind each sword-and-shield-armed 
warrior on horseback, I saw in the designs, just 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


103 

as is told of in Messer Marco’s book, a foot- 
soldier armed with bow and arrows and long 
lance, and mounted on the crupper! 

But another feature had struck me. That was 
the constant recurrence of the number nine. Re- 
member there had been nine stairs leading up to 
the corridor in the Elephant Stone, and here in 
the Stone Dobo there were nine flights of stairs, 
nine steps to a flight. There were nine slim pil- 
lars on either side of the deep doorway. And 
now, in my wonder, I noted that each half of the 
double door was paneled with panels, immense 
and designed and nine in number! 

“ It’s a tambatong! I guessed. “ It’s a good- 
luck charm to drive away antuSy or bad spirits, 
just as that damar torch was a tambatong to drive 
me out of the Jallan Batoe. But it’s more than 
that. I’ve read that among the Tartars the re- 
peating nine times of anything serves to show 
respect or authority or position in a great de- 
gree. Come to think of it, these Poonan always 
bow nine times to me. That’s a sign, I take 
it, full of respect, of mystical awe of my 
position among them, whatever that position 
really is.” 

But nine times nine of anything, as in the num- 
ber of these stairs, was evidence of the greatest, 
most superlative form of respect, of awe, of ex- 
alted position. That was it! This Stone Dobo 
was the supreme temple, the sublime Holy of 
Holies of the Poonan ! 


104 


THE STRANGE STORY 


And I was soon to enter the sublimity of that 
Holy of Holies. 

Hanging from either half of the double door 
were hoops of solid gold, like old-fashioned door- 
knockers. Well now, of a sudden, my guards put 
their hands upon those golden hoops and heaved 
mightily. 

The double door divided, with a reluctant 
jerk, in the center; and then slowly — never so 
slowly, it seemed to me — slid back to either side. 
A volume of sound smote my ears. It was the 
slow dull beating of tomtoms, the monotonous 
weird drone of many singsonging voices. I looked 
within. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


105 


CHAPTER XI 

HOW HYDE CAME TO SEE TREASURE, 
GORGEOUS AND PRODIGIOUS, AND 
FOUND THAT WHICH IS THE AWE 
OF MAN 

I looked within (Hyde pursued) ; but for a 
little, such was the glare in my eyes, I could see 
nothing. Torches flickered everywhere, like a 
myriad of candles, and their light reflected from 
the white walls in a snowy glare. After a little 
more, however, I found myself looking into a 
cavern — a columnated cave-temple vast as St. 
Peter’s in Rome ! 

Before me, on the flooring, knelt a host of 
women — women with backs bent and immovable, 
and robed in the dull gleam of golden- and silver- 
pheasant feathers and the polychrome plumage 
of the peacock. It was like that picture of Solo- 
mon’s numerous wives which one used to see in 
old Scripture illustrations. Those backs and bent 
backs were as countless as the sands on the shore, 
and as sparkling with colors. They stretched 
away and away, around and beyond the far pil- 
lars into the remotest recesses of the cave-temple, 
until I thought, for a breath, that I must be look- 
ing upon all the women of Asia that ever had 
been I Aye, that ever would be ! 

But in all that vast sea of bent backs, I could 


io6 THE STRANGE STORY 

glimpse no white, white egret gown; I could 
glimpse no head bowed under a weight of raw 
gold hair. In that stupendous assemblage, every 
last woman’s hair was black — blue-black under 
the glare of the glowing cavern. It was like an 
anti-climax in the chain of wonders. Really, my 
heart sunk. Among all those women and Golden 
Women, there was no sight nor sign of my golden- 
haired greenish-eyed Marshal Queen! 

Yet, in searching for her, I discovered a certain 
fact. I saw, in a perfect stream that stretched 
around the far-flung walls of the cave-temple, a 
double line of men. They were the Poonan, 
bowed of head, their bodies arrayed, beside the 
jawat, in the rare sleek skins of panthers and 
kijangs and plandok and other beautiful speci- 
mens of antelope and deer. 

But they were not armed ! Dangling from the 
lax fingers of the short men standing in the row 
against the walls were brass cymbals, cogon 
whistles, horn conchs and bamboo flutes. Slowly, 
monotonously, the even shorter men in the front 
row were beating tomtoms. 

Now, for the very first time, I realized that to 
all this foregathering of men and of women, some 
ceremony was attached. And from that slow 
funereal beat of the tomtoms, that wail of the 
death chant, but particularly from that lack of 
arms on the .squat men, I felt it must be some 
great and awful rite! 

Born of nameless dread, thoughts fluttered and 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 107 

flickered in reeling succession through my over- 
wrought brains. I thought of the Orang Benua, 
and how those abysmal headhunters had never 
dared to break the sanctuary of the sacred Jallan 
Batoe by attempting to enter its crater. I thought 
of my three Christian Dyak boys who would not 
budge a foot up the volcano slope. I thought of 
the Sea Dyaks, who, though miles, miles away, 
feared to breathe the name of the sacred Jallan 
Batoe without making, afterward, a mystic sign 
of awe, as did the Hebrews of old in referring to 
Jehovah ! 

Tales leaped vividly into my mind; tales I had 
heard on the shingle beaches and deep in the rot- 
ting jungles. All were tales of that dread power 
of the Poonan, so like the mysterious power of the 
Thibetans on the top of the world; tales of men 
and men — white men, insane men, as Fitz said — ^ 
who had braved, with the boldness of their race, 
the dangers of the sacred Jallan Batoe, but men 
and men who never had returned to tell their 
tale! And the very words of the High Priestess, 
during my talk with her, had verified in a cer- 
tain degree the truth and horror of these tales ! 

“ God! ” I exclaimed. “ Can it be — can it be 
these Poonan have kowtowed to me and adored 
me almost as a god, only to pull me down the 
farther, only to make my fall the more terrible? 
And this ceremony — can it be some titanic torture, 
mysterious, horrible, hideous and revolting!” 

I spoke between dry lips. Well, just as I did, 


io8 THE STRANGE STORY 

from either hand of the wide doorway, two Golden 
Men stepped forth and approached me. One was 
an old, old man, with a flowing mane of white 
hair just like that of the half horse, half woman 
of the Stone Doho itself. Drooping over the 
corners of his mouth in separate long white hairs 
was a Tartar mustache. The other was a younger 
man with a bristle of black hair all over his heavy- 
jawed face. He was squat and muscled like a 
pugilist. Indeed he looked, with his muscles rip- 
pling as he stalked toward me, just like Gunner 
Brydges, the British Navy Middleweight Cham- 
pion, whom I saw go twenty rounds in Rushcut- 
ters’ Bay Stadium down in Sydney. 

Across their golden right shoulders and flap- 
ping down to the tops of the jawats over their 
loins, each wore a broad strip of sacred pehang 
skin, brindled yellow and black like a tabby cat’s 
fur. The other men in the cave-temple were 
garbed, I had noticed, not in the skin of the sacred 
black-spotted leopard, but in the lesser skins of 
antelopes and panthers and such ferine animals as 
occasionally prowled in through the tunnel. Be- 
cause of those sacred pehang strips therefore, I 
had an idea. 

“ I’ll wager,” I muttered to myself, “ that these 
two Golden Men are some kind of Adjies or in- 
ferior Chieftains of the Poonan ! ” 

Ere I had a chance to fear them, especially the 
muscled one who looked like Gunner Brydges, 
they stood before me and bowed their heads to 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


109 

the white flooring of the doorway. The slow tom- 
toming of the men, the death wail of all those 
women, sobbed softly away. The whole immense 
cavern of the Dobo became sealed with a silence 
like that of the tomb — a silence, just like that of 
the tomb, which seemed to breathe of the secrets 
of another world, a world gone and buried in an 
infinity of time. 

In that entombing silence, so magic with the 
whispers of oblivion, the old fellow separated 
the whiteness of his hair from the whiteness of 
the flooring. He looked up at me out of slits of 
eyes that glowed like black coals. 

“ O Mopeng-Lon of Genghis, Toewan Baik!** 
his voice quavered with age through the stirless 
air; “O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good ! You who have crossed the vast laut (sea) , 
as our fathers did before us ; you who have come 
to us from the Negorei (country) of Tartary 
where the plandok is without horns and bears be- 
hind its navel a sweet smell! (The musk-deer of 
Thibet.) Kehd; come! Come with thy two Ad^ 
jies of the Poonan, and sit upon the great T ojout- 
Plo-Sie Throne of the Tartar Khanate! Long, 
long has that Sublime Nine-Times-Nine Throne 
been occupied by Mopeng-Led — Women-Children 
of the Great Genghis; but never by Mopeng-Lon 
of Genghis Khan, since Yeh-Lu Apushka obeyed 
the Sending of the Mandau ! Kehd; come ! ” 

The Gunner and Mohong W 00k — or White 
Hair, as I called that weazened old Chief — 


no 


THE STRANGE STORY 


wheeled then, and began walking into the cavern 
under the white cope of the deep doorway. With 
them so obviously leading the way, there seemed 
nothing for me to do but to follow. Leaving the 
two guards who had brought me from the Ele- 
phant Stone, I stepped through the doorway. 

At the end of the doorway, the two Chieftains 
continued on, straight forward toward the front of 
the vast cavern. I followed after. The way was 
now along an aisle, hedged on either hand by those 
kneeling rows of women. I sensed a kind of rev- 
erence in the bowed attitude of all those lovely 
women. It was as though my passage so 
close to those women were as a benediction to 
them! 

With a sudden accession of pride, therefore, I 
straightened my over-six-feet of body, threw back 
my red head and towering above all those kneeling 
bent-backed women, walked on down that aisle 
with something of the boldness I had displayed 
when first I had walked into the Jallan Batoe. 

Thus for a couple of hundred paces. Then the 
front of the cave-temple, as I drew near, began 
to take definite shape. I saw, elevated high by 
nine stone steps above the rest of the flooring, a 
monstrous large dais that was railed off by a 
balustrade carved bodily out of the living white 
stone. 

To each side of that inclosed dais, tapestried by 
rare interwoven feathers, glorious in color and 
enriched with embroideries of gold and silver 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


III 


thread, were two apartments like the sacristies in 
certain Christian churches. Between those two 
sacristies was a great space, glowing with the 
whiteness of the stone and waveringly pillared 
with the red balls and the smoke columns of a mul- 
titude of torches. 

My eyes, as I drew nearer, quickly focused 
themselves to see in all that glare of stone and 
the light from those myriad torches. Then I 
seemed to make out nine narra kliauSy or ma- 
hogany shields, raised aloft like high altars. I made 
out nine high shields, I say; then I stopped dead. 
On each of those nine high shields, I saw treasure 
— treasure such as, in all my life, I never had 
expected to see — treasure, incalculable and fabu- 
lous and terrible ! 

The subterranean vaults of the Dalai Lhama 
of Thibet, the treasures of the Third Inner City 
of Pekin, the wealth of all the Moguls of Delhi, 
all the jewels of the Siamese in Kang Nai — none, 
not one of these, was anything to compare with 
this ! 

Crystals there were, flawless and of congealed 
marvelous lights; beryls unshaped by man, huge 
as eggs and glowing miles deep, in that snowy 
glare, like sunlighted pools; imperishable stones 
of rainbow tints and blends; chalcedony and 
chrysoprase of carnelian and aqua-marine, agate 
and green jasper and lapis lazuli; gems cut and 
set, uncut and unmounted; rubies, emeralds, gar- 
nets, diamonds, amethysts, sapphires, jade and 


1 12 THE STRANGE STORY 

pearls — a glittering staggering hodgepodge of 
wealth ! It was the age-old treasury of Borneo ! 

Before all that prodigal wealth and all that riot 
of color, my eyes swam and my brains dizzied in 
their brainpan. Then I saw that all that opulence 
was laid out on the nine high mahogany shields 
which were mounted after the fashion of tables, 
each on nine carven stalagmites projecting like 
white arms from the elevated flooring, and set 
about, each by nine balls of red fire glowing in as 
many inverted gold gongs. 

Those shields formed a lofty semicircle back 
from the white stone balustrade. They were nine 
in number, as I said. Six of them, three on either 
side, were heaped up with the treasure. From 
that reeling panorama of jungle tints, my eyes 
now picked out certain of the treasure. There 
were jewel effigies of fishes, with red eyes of 
rubies; there were infinitesimal bells, with tiny 
pearls for tongues; and there were crescents and 
moons and suns, with discs and rays of gold that 
blinded me with their settings of peacock-colored 
gems. 

Lying flat upon a seventh kliau was a mandau 
or headhunter — a great massive sword, concave 
on one side and convex on the other, for all the 
world like a Malay kris^ save that it had but one 
cutting edge. Its fine-tempered steel glinted coldly 
in all that light, and its concave back shone warm 
with a thick inlay of solid gold. But the hilt! 
Made of ivory it was, ribbed with wires of gold, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


113 

and set thick with diamonds and rubies and emer- 
alds and pearls ! 

It was the Mandau of Genghis Khan — thus I 
supposed and correctly; the Menacing Mandau 
of Genghis Khan ! How it ever had come to the 
Glowing Doho, why it had been christened that 
name of threatening evil, I did not know. But 
from all I had heard, I did know, for a certainty, 
that the Poonan feared it. To it was attached 
some solemn awful service which they called the 
Sending of the Sword ! 

But the next kliau. It was the center one, far- 
thest back from the white stone balustrade. It 
was the largest shield of all. It was bare of all 
heaped-up treasure. That was a distinct relief to 
my eyes. Yet it was not entirely bare of 
treasure. It was ornamented, not as the Tring 
Dyaks and Lon Wai and Ukits and other tribes 
of wild headhunters ornament their shields — with 
tufts of human hair; but it was enchased thickly 
with embroideries and arabesques of precious im- 
perishable gems. Indeed, so thickly was it scrolled 
and figured and ingeniously designed with gems — ' 
with fanciful and real shapes of men and animals 
formed from stones of polished turquoise and red, 
red rubies, and with flowers and foliage and ferns 
fashioned out of beryls of violet-blue and amber 
and crude dripping green — that I believe, to this 
day, it would be impenetrable proof against bul- 
lets! 

But that huge shield was not placed upon its 


THE STRANGE STORY 


114 

nine white arms of stalagmites in the same manner 
as the others — that is, with convex face to the 
raised flooring, the slight depression of inner side 
ready to hold, like a saucer, a heap of jewels. 
No; the face of that shield — an involved impene- 
trable mosaic of sparkling stones, as I said, longer 
than it was wide, and swelling like the half of 
a football in a round curve to its center — that 
face was turned up to the glowing ceilings of the 
altar space. 

Wherefore I reasoned, quite naturally, that it 
was not meant, like the others to uphold treasure. 
It was meant to uphold men. It was meant to 
uphold me! From the words of old Mohong 
JVook, I believed I was supposed to sit upon it. 
That large kliau, so inwrought with gems, was the 
upraised Sublime Nine-Times-Nine Throne of the 
Tartar Khanate! 

I started toward it in the wake of old Mohong 
and the Gunner, now awaiting me a short space 
ahead at the foot of the nine stone stairs. Well, 
just as I did, my eyes fell upon the last shield of 
all. It was the one on the left-hand side of that 
jewel-embellished Throne. It was really the 
eighth shield, as that Throne being in the center 
of the semicircle and to judge from its name, 
was in all probability counted as the ninth shield. 

Anyhow, my eyes fell upon that left-hand 
kUau; and then — then I saw that which I had 
heard so much about, that which I had come ex- 
pressly to find, that which I hoped some day to 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 115 

take back with me to the outer world! It took 
my breath clean away. It was awesome I 

A single emerald, man, carved as by a god- 
hand into the life-size form of a shimmering green 
parrot! The greatest treasure ever dragged or 
dug from sea or soil ! The Green, Green God ! 


THE STRANGE STORY 


1 16 


CHAPTER XII 

A DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE 
GREEN, GREEN GOD, BY WHICH 
HYDE HALTS HIS STORY, AND ALL 
OF WHICH THE READER MAY SKIP, 
IF HE DARES 

Abruptly Hyde paused and reached out one big- 
veined hairy hand and groped with it along the 
bedding of the bunk, upon which he was sitting, 
for that last flask of whisky which neither Fitz 
nor he had quite finished. 

I felt, at his abrupt action, as a man must feel 
when rudely awakened from a dream by a dash of 
cold water on the face. I jumped in every muscle, 
every nerve of me. Out of my ears drifted 
the tomtoming and the unearthly death chant 
of all those Golden Women; from before my 
eyes faded, like sun-smitten snow, the panoramic 
picture of that vast glowing white cavern and the 
brilliant luster of all those gorgeous gems. I 
slumped down into my own world, and once more 
became aware of the recumbent figure of Fitz be- 
hind me, the sudorific closeness of the fo’c’s’le all 
about, and the stench of the slush-lamp swaying 
slightly overhead. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


117 

Hyde quaffed deeply from the flask, screwed 
on the metal cap, wiped his stubbly lips with one 
hand, and made that concluding indescribable 
clucking. His voice took on an easy conversa- 
tional tone. 

“ Before ever I got into the Jallan Batoe,” he 
said, “ I had heard of the Green, Green God. It 
was all legend, of course; all hearsay, as Fitz 
once said. But I heard of the Green, Green 
Deewa down in Malay Muk’s in Banjermasin, on 
the Circular Quay of Sydney, up in the court of 
Sir Charles Brooke, the Raj of Sarawak, and 
in the pubs that border the Strand of Calcutta, 
the Cotton Green of Bombay. All through the 
South Seas, the vast Orient, everywhere the hot 
monsoon blows, I heard of the Green, Green 
God, I say; and whenever I heard of it, I heard 
in the same breath that the God of the Poonan 
was really the Lost Emerald Parrot of the Great 
Mogul of Delhi.” 

He looked questioningly at me with his crisp 
blue eyes. 

“ You have heard of the Great Mogul of Delhi, 
Shah Jehan, haven’t you, lad?” 

I nodded. I’ll admit I was quite taken up with 
what Hyde was telling me. His was the kind of 
talk to stimulate, if it did not wholly satisfy, all 
my youthful craving for Adventure. 

“ You mean the East Indian Emperor who 
constructed the wondrous Taj Mahal as a sepul- 
cher for one of his dead queens? ” I half said, half 


ii8 THE STRANGE STORY 

asked, feeling none too certain of my history, 
though I had but just quit college. 

Hyde nodded his red mane of hair. 

“ The same, lad. Shah Jehan, who was more 
an artist than a king, erected the Taj Mahal as a 
memorial of his wife and cousin, Mumtaz Mahal, 
the only woman whom he ever loved, who had died 
in childbirth shortly after he had mounted in good 
old Asiatic fashion — by murdering his brother^ — 
to the throne of his fathers. But it was to a fa- 
vorite, the Pearl-Lily, the zenith in beauty of all 
his zenana, that he erected the Dewan-i-Khas, 
or Hall of Private Audience, in the Palace of 
Delhi.” 

“ But what has that got to do with — — ” 

“ Everything, everything ! The greatest mar- 
vel of that marvelous Dewan-i-Khas was the Pea- 
cock Throne. And of that throne, my story — 
aye, my whole life ! — ^has much to do. 

“ Austin de Bordeaux, a French virtuoso in 
gold-and-gem art, at that time a refugee in Delhi, 
built that Peacock Throne after the design made 
by Shah Jehan himself; and when it was com- 
pleted, with all its gold and precious stones, it 
was worth the regal ransom of a rajah. Its esti- 
mated value was some thirty millions of dollars. 
For it was built, legs and arms and back and base, 
of a solid framework of pure gold, inlaid with 
stars of rare rubies and pure diamonds and great 
emeralds of shameful value, all gleaming from a 
white cloud of priceless pearls. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 119 

‘‘ It derived its name from, the two life-size 
likenesses of peacocks, perched on the back of it 
at each corner and spreading their long tails 
of colorful gems behind it. Never had there been 
seen birds so strange, so shimmering, so splendid; 
for the many jewels that colored them in the daz- 
zling hues of the peacock’s plumage were the very 
spoil of the soil, the wonder of the waves ! 

“ Yet, between those carved and polished pea- 
cocks, there sat a green parrot that surpassed 
even those two peacocks ! It was carved, not out 
of many jewels, but out of a single enormous 
emerald ! Think of that ! An emerald, the purity 
and bigness of which the world has never dupli- 
cated, nor ever will duplicate even when the last 
prospector has scooped up the last treasure in all 
the world! 

“ Once, as I said, that wondrous throne stood in 
the Dewan-i-Khas of the Mogul’s Palace in Delhi. 
The Persians, when they took that city in 1739, 
tore the throne to pieces in order the more easily 
to carry away its rich materials, with which they 
afterward embellished their own shah’s throne. 
The Persians got the twin peacocks; that’s the 
Peacock Throne of Persia to-day. What became 
of the Emerald Parrot, nobody knows. It is lost. 
But I found it in that Stone Doho of the Orang 
Poonan. It’s the Green, Green God 1 ” 

“ But, Hyde,” I objected, just as soon as my 
mind could grasp the startling significance of his 
statement, ‘‘ how did that Emerald Parrot ever 


120 


THE STRANGE STORY 

get from India down into the Jallan Batoe in the 
dark heart of Borneo?” 

Hyde shrugged his massive naked shoulders — 
without causing an awakening flutter, however, 
from that green parrot asleep on its strange perch. 

“ That’s the mystery, lad. Legends and 
legends I heard from the Poonan, afterward, in 
explanation of how all those gorgeous gems and 
even that Menacing Mandau of Genghis Khan 
came to be in the Stone Dobo; but the Poonan 
themselves have only the vaguest sort of legend 
about the source of the Green, Green God. 

“ In tempo doelo, so that vague legend runs — 
in times gone by, as the Poonan say of anything 
which dates farther back than two generations, 
the Emerald Parrot flew down into the Jallan 
Batoe from the vast round O of sky, and took up 
its abode in the Stone Doho. It was then a flying 
bird; but the moment it entered the cave-temple, a 
wondrous change began to be wrought in it. How 
long it took that change to work ere it reached 
its fulfillment, the Poonan do not attempt to 
reckon — it may have been days, they say, it most 
likely was many moons; but slowly, inevitably, 
they aver, the Emerald Parrot lost all life. In 
the end it turned into just what it is now — a dead 
shimmering stone, miraculously carved. 

“ Of course, there must be a more natural ex- 
planation. I myself have a more natural explana- 
tion. You remember that the Poonan helped Soro 
Patti and his little Dyak band to withstand the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


I2I 


Dutch? Well, I think that somehow, from some 
wandering member of his band, Soro Patti had got 
hold of the Emerald Parrot. I believe that he 
gave that Parrot to the Poonan as tribute to ob- 
tain their services. 

“ The Poonan themselves say that the Emerald 
came into the Jallan Batoe long after the Send- 
ing of the Sword of Genghis Khan, and not much 
farther back than four or five generations before 
my coming. That would bring the arrival of that 
Emerald Parrot around then to just about the 
same time as Soro Patti’s insurrection. 

“ But it’s all a mystery, anyhow! ” Hyde went 
on. ‘‘ And because it is such a mystery, the Wild 
Men of the Wilds look upon that Emerald — albeit 
it is the newest of their treasures — as the greatest 
of their treasures. To them it is a tambatong 
against evil, a god that has brought them all man- 
ner of good fortune. 

‘‘ For ever since the Emerald Parrot flew down 
into the crater and turned into stone, they say, for- 
tune has favored them — the crops have been abun- 
dant almost to excess, the earth has trembled only 
slightly during the hot seasons, the waters of the 
air have fallen copiously, the Golden Women 
have been fruitful and the Golden Men have died 
only because of old age. Fortune has favored 
them to a desire, because of the Green, Green 
God, they say, and the Jallan Batoe has been a 
paradise on earth. 

“ Wherefore, they never disturb that Emerald 


122 


THE STRANGE STORY 

Parrot. It is never supposed to be taken out of 
the Glowing Dobo. Even during religious cere- 
monies when the Menacing Mandau and the Nine- 
Times-Nine Throne, all the jewels and the kliaus 
are borne through the avenues of the Jallan Batoe 
to the tabu negorei of antus — the cemetery; even 
when once a twelvemonth, like the Shinto wor- 
shipers of Japan, the beautiful Marshal Queen 
wears the Robe of Holies and, followed by the 
Priestesses, pays homage to the graves of her an- 
cestors; even then, during that most solemn serv- 
ice of the Poonan, the Green, .Green God is left, 
alone and untouched, upon its elevated shield in 
the Stone Dobo! 

“ No Poonan will touch it, or allow it to be 
touched. Its shimmering greenness is more sacred 
to them than even the person of their Orlok 
Radenajo, the graves of their dead and wor- 
shiped ancestors. For it is a mystical God-given 
treasure to them — a god in itself! 

“ I tell you, it’s the awe of the Poonan, of all 
men who have seen it! Aye, or heard of it! A 
parrot made from a single emerald, twelve inches 
long, one whole foot! It’s big, I tell you! A 
single emerald, man, big as Mogul here ! ” 

Hyde lifted the green parrot, with the words, 
from his brown and beaded shoulder. The par- 
rot was startled from its sleep. Its flesh-colored 
lids ran up like window-shades, its pointed green 
wings beat twice, in a wild flutter, upon the short 
square tail. It seemed affrighted by the sudden 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


123 

move. Desperately, two toes before and two be- 
hind, it clung with one foot to the extended index 
finger of Hyde’s right hand. 

Hyde held the parrot toward me, and I well 
recollect how its eyes blinked redly into mine. 

“A single emerald, big as Mogul! ” Hyde re- 
peated fervidly. ‘‘ That’s why I call the old boy 
Mogul. He has the same dentations on the mar- 
gins of the bills, the same squareness of the short 
tail, the same shimmering green as the Emerald 
Parrot of the Moguls of Delhi ! No blue band 
over his forehead, no black feathers edging his 
neck — nothing but green, just like the Emerald ! ” 
Hyde grasped my knee with his free left hand. 
‘‘ That Emerald has been shaped and wrought, 
cut and engraved and polished by the most skill- 
ful lapidaries in all Ind 1 Why, Mogul here — the 
old imitator I — had he been on my shoulder when 
I was in that Stone Dobo would have been fooled 
himself by that wondrous Parrot. He would 
have thought it one of his own kind, a live par- 
rot. He would have fluttered down beside it, to 
bill and coo and make love to it! 

‘‘ It seems alive ! It’s carved as by a godhandl 
It’s fooled even the Poonan ! I tell you, it’s such 
a marvel of carving, of sculpturing, that those 
marvelous sculptors of the stupendous stones, the 
Poonan themselves, worship it ias a god! The 
greatest light ever lifted from any land ! That’s 
the Green, Green God ! ” 

His face blood-red as a harvest moon with his 


THE STRANGE STORY 


124 

enthusiasm, Hyde broke off to replace the parrot, 
Mogul, on his sweating shoulder. The parrot 
nestled down against that flaming dog-collar of 
beard, blinked his red eyes at me, then the flesh- 
colored window-shades rolled down. 

And then that parrot, the recumbent figure of 
the sleeping Fitz, the shadowy rows of bunks of 
the fo’c’s’le, even that flaming-haired shell-and- 
pea fakir himself, vanished from before my eyes. 
I was listening, once again, to Hyde’s hare- 
brained, staggering story. Before my eyes were 
the vast glowing interior of that Stone Dobo, the 
stream of Golden Men, the kneeling multitude of 
Golden Women, and that stupendous terrible 
array of priceless imperishable gems! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


125 


CHAPTER XIII 

They came and they sapped, they fired and they 
slew, 

Trussed up their loot and were gone! ** 

Ancient Persian Poet. 

The Gunner and Mohong Wook walked on be- 
fore me toward that lofty altar dais (began Hyde, 
taking up the thread of his story from where he 
had left off). Up the nine stone stairs we went 
to a gateway in that white balustrade. That gate- 
way, like the stairs and the balustrade, was carved 
out of the white stone. It was hinged on pivots 
of the living stone, jutting from the top and bot- 
tom rails of the gate and swinging in bowls hol- 
lowed in the balustrade. 

With my eyes swimming under all that glare 
of stone, all that red glowing light from the 
myriad torches, all that dazzle of color from the 
prodigious treasure, I followed the two Chief- 
tains inside that semicircle of shields and ap- 
proached the great Nine-Times-Nine Throne in 
the center, jewel-studded but empty. 

Six feet or so in the rear of that great Throne, 
stretching on a single thick knobby bamboo pole 
from sacristy to sacristy, clear across the back of 
the altar space, was a mat of pleached pandanus, 


126 THE STRANGE STORY 

forty feet or more in extent and fully ten feet 
high. Flanking that Throne on each side and 
immediately behind were nine balls of fire, glow- 
ing redly from long sago leaves in as many in- 
verted gongs. And those gongs, of solid gold, 
stood like the Throne on stalagmites of stone 
that projected, slim as white fingers, up from 
the flooring. 

Just without those balls of red fire, to either 
hand of the Throne, the two Chieftains now took 
up their stand. 

I approached that Nine-Times-Nine Throne 
with a certain assurance. From the words of old 
Mohongy as I now familiarly called in my own 
mind that aged Chief, I realized that I was sup- 
posed to sit upon the Throne. Both he and the 
Gunner were expectantly waiting for me to sit 
upon that Throne. 

“ Then, indeed,” I said half-facetiously to my- 
self — “ then, indeed, must I be the Man-Child of 
Genghis Khan ! ” And I sat down upon the slight 
swell of that Throne. 

But that lofty Throne was no soft seat, no 
luxuriously cushioned divan. So studded was it 
with scrolls and designs of precious stones that it 
was like a seat of sharp-pointed tacks. I tell you, 
for a breath, I thought I was a boy back in Eng- 
land once again and the unsuspecting victim of a 
time-honored schoolday prank. Beyond those red 
balls of fire, through the pillars of white smoke on 
my right hand, I could swear old Mohong was 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


127 

laughing at my discomfort with his black slits of 
eyes. 

Wherefore I turned quickly from him and faced 
that whole stupendous assemblage. In a heap, as 
I did, it suddenly struck me what a figure I cut, 
there among all those glowing fires and dazzling 
gems, high above all those richly skin-covered men 
and all those wondrously garbed, wondrously 
beautiful women! 

Can you imagine the scene ? On my right hand 
was that glinting massive ivory- and jewel-hilted 
sword; on my left, that inimitable Green, Green 
God, shimmering a deep green like a reach of 
jungle ; and between was I, sitting quite cautiously, 
I assure you, on the fine-chiseled gems of that 
Throne. But I, Willyum Hyde I — my boots 
dangling from my feet in shreds of leather; my 
worn khaki trousers spotted a piebald ochre with 
the mottled muck of jungle; my hickory shirt 
open at the neck with the heat to show a chest of 
red hairs; my beard red and uncut and unkempt; 
and my uncombed hair matted with sweat and 
trailing in red streaks down into my eyes 1 

“ All I need to complete this pretty picture of 
a vagabond Croesus,” I smiled inwardly, “ is a 
cigarette pasted on my lip — — ” 

I broke off abruptly. For abruptly, as by a 
shock of electricity, that whole stupendous assem- 
blage had come to sudden life. The long circling 
stream of men raised their heads; like a prairie 
of tall grass lifting up after a bowing breath of 


128 


THE STRANGE STORY 


wind, up bobbed the beautiful delicate faces of all 
those women. With almond eyes agleam as with 
expectancy, they looked directly up at me. 

“ Well,” I asked myself, attempting to return 
the look of all those exotic beauties, “ now what’s 
next on the programme?” 

I expected, naturally, the next move from them. 
But the next move came not from them. It came 
from behind me, from beyond the Green, Green 
God on the eighth kliau. 

Of a sudden, with a klecking sound I could hear 
in all that expectant stillness, the hangings of rare 
feathers, woven with embroideries of gold and 
silver thread, were swept aside from the left-hand 
sacristy. Forth like a vision from the Araby of 
Imagination, stepped a beautiful Golden Woman. 

“ My Golden Feather of Flame ! ” I breathed. 
For a trice, my heart stopped beating, and only 
splotches of colorful lights danced before my love- 
sick dizzied eyes. Then, alas ! I saw that her hair 
was not red as the rawness of gold, nor her 
eyes of the bluish-green of turquoise ! 

Black as the jungle was her hair, blue-black as 
the jungle where the overarching canopy of foli- 
age shuts out every random ray of sunlight; and 
almost black were her eyes, blackish-brown and 
wickedly alluring with their evil slant of lids ! She 
was the High Priestess, Lip-Plak-T engga! 

I tell you, for the nonce, my heart sunk — sunk 
with a heaviness like that of lead. Where was 
the Marshal Queen? I asked myself. Where was 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


129 

she who had mourned because of my coming? I 
felt like shouting — I felt like shouting full at that 
High Priestess: 

“What have you done to her? What have 
you done to my beautiful Golden Feather of 
Flame?” 

But, with the very thought, my heart seemed to 
bound from my boots to my throat. It choked 
me. You remember I was an orchid-hunter? 
Well here, on that imperious High Priestess, I 
saw orchids that were worth, each and every one, 
the very life-blood of a man of my kind ! Out in 
the world where there were shop-windows and 
horse-shows and five-o’clock teas, those orchids 
were the fad in fashion, the shame in price ! 

She was robed, that High Priestess, from the 
gentle curve of her bosoms to the gold bangles 
jingling on her golden ankles, in a gown made 
entirely of interlaced orchids — living red, red 
orchids ! They were those very orchids known in 
Borneo as “The Blood Drops of Deewa^\f 

Two of those “ Blood Drops of God ” held the 
gown over the droop of either slim shoulder. A 
single orchid, red as a pigeon-blood ruby, was 
entwined in the glossy blue-blackness of her snaky 
tresses. On her bare round golden arms were 
armlets of rare platinum. But the whole effect 
was one of daring dazzling red on a feline form 
of olive-gold skin, of blue-black hair, of dark evil 
eyes ! 

Behind that silique-eyed High Priestess walked 


130 THE STRANGE STORY 

nine youngish oblong-eyed men — the same that 
had been in her retinue that day. They were 
garbed down to the jawat in strips of tiger skin 
flung over their left shoulders; strips of bright 
orange-yellow, edged with white and striped by 
black bars — the warmly colored tiger skin which 
in the East is considered the emblem of mystic 
power. They were the Priests. 

They walked, those Priests, two by two, with a 
wide space between the men in each pair, the 
ninth Priest bringing up the rear, and all hold- 
ing between them — just as a gargantuan flag is 
borne in a parade — d, robe made of thickly-woven 
salmon silk, solid and heavy and shining with 
jewels; diamonds, amethysts, green jade, red and 
amber garnets, stars of sapphires, rings of rubies, 
ellipses of emeralds and clouds of white pearls — ■ 
a blend of colorful jewels as gorgeous and flaw- 
less as the undying colors of a Royal Kirmanshaw 
rug. That was the Robe of Holies ! 

Now flanking each Priest like a familiar, walked 
a woman. They were the Priestesses, nine in num- 
ber and all rarely beautiful. They were dressed 
like their High Priestess, Lip-Plak-Tengga, in 
plaited orchid gowns, as though in an attempt to 
resemble some particular variety of jewel in that 
Robe of Holies. 

One was gowned in Disa Longicornis orchids, 
violet-blue as the amethysts of the Robe ; another 
in orchids that looked like the Lost Orchid of 
Thibet — that were white and daintily dappled with 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


131 

black mottlings and that seemed to shimmer, in 
the white glare of stone, with highlights and 
shadows just like diamonds; another in my 
Coelogyne Lowii, the priceless “ Flowers of 
Mercy ” of Borneo, white as the clouds of pearls 
in that Robe ; and still another in a lost species of 
orchid for which I know no name, but which 
gleamed as delicately brown as the pellucid amber 
garnets or the resplendent eyes of the Priestesses 
themselves. 

The golden-olive High Priestess stood before 
me, a silken sorceress in her “ Blood Drop ” gown. 
And looking at her, I saw for a surety now that 
she was sublimely beautiful — her nose sensitively 
chiseled and imperious as Minerva’s, her buds of 
bosoms quickly rising and falling, like fretful 
wavelets, beneath the daring diaphaneity of her 
orchid gown, and her skin, where it was visible, 
as sleekly golden as the soft bed of dreams. 
There was in her alluringly wicked eyes and in 
that quick rise and fall of her breasts a sort of 
triumphant emotion, as though indeed she were 
intoxicated with triumph. 

“Can it be?” the thought went thudding 
through my head — “ can it be she is glorying over 
some evil deed? What is it? Has she dispos- 
sessed my Golden Feather of Flame of some 
queenly right? Is she about to take unto her- 
self now some prerogative of that Marshal 
Queen? ” 

But there was no time to determine the answer. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


132 

Behind the slim High Priestess, in the deep space 
between the white stone balustrade and the semi- 
circle of shields, the flowery Priestesses and the 
youngish Priests were ranging themselves, the lat- 
ter still bearing between them that magnificent 
Robe of Holies. To all appearances, the cere- 
mony which I had thought was half over at least, 
was in reality just about to begin. 

The jingle of the gold and silver bangles on 
the twinkling feet of the Priestesses died away. 
The stupendous assemblage beyond and below 
that white stone balustrade went deathly still. In 
that whole cyclopean cavern of the Doho there 
seemed not a living breath. Even the red fires 
on either hand of me burned without a sound. 
It was a vacuum of stillness. 

Presently the High Priestess, Flower of 
the Silver Star, bowed low to the white flooring 
before me; then, upflinging both golden arms 
above her head, in all that unearthly stillness, she 
spoke : 

“ O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good! Arre! 

“ Long, long ago, in far tempo doelo, we, the 
Orang Poonan, the Wild Men of the Wilds, were 
Tartars and lived in Tartary, the negorei (coun- 
try) where the golden rhubarb grows and the 
plandok is without horns and bears behind its 
navel a sweet smell. Our Liege and Lord — ^aye, 
and the Lord of all the Tartars — was Genghis 
Khan, the Supreme Khan of Khans 1 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


133 

And Genghis Khan, at that time, had con- 
quered the whole Eastern World, save only one 
place — the place of savages and jungles; and that 
place was the Continent of Borneo. So Genghis 
Khan sent across the vast laut (sea) some nine 
Tomans of Tartars to conquer Borneo. That 
was the Tojout-Plo-Sie, the Nine-Times-Nine, the 
Most Extraordinary Expedition ever undertaken 
by the Tartars! 

“Across the blue sea those Tartars floated in 
many junks, and each junk was stepped with four 
masts and twelve great sails ; and when the 
weather favored, they lifted to the breeze a top- 
sail of silk, crimson as the sun. Three banks of 
rowers, one above the other, bent and pulled and 
grunted down below under the whiplashes of Tar- 
tar Sartaks; and the sweeps that gleamed and 
dripped dye-blue were nine times nine in num- 
ber I 

“ The moon rose up out of the sea like a slice 
of orange, and swelled through the nights till it 
bloated with blood, then sunk out of sight, a 
curved waning sliver. A new moon rose up, 
swelled, and slipped down again. And then — 
A he I Far, far away, they sighted the greenness 
, of Borneo I ’’ 

Now, there was that in the words of the woman 
which convinced me of a tremendous idea that 
I long had looked upon as a wild fancy. Since I 
had entered the Jallan Batoe, to be sure, that idea 
had grown on me with bits and added bits of 


THE STRANGE STORY 


134 

proof. But here in her words was proof incon- 
testable, proof positive. The Poonan, of a surety, 
were of Tartar stock! Of a surety, they were 
descendants of those nine Tomans ^ ninety thou- 
sand Tartars, who had invaded Borneo I 

The High Priestess spoke on, a cascade of 
words inflected by rippling musical notes. I lis- 
tened, and as the meaning of those words seeped 
into my brain, my heart seemed to trip and choke 
me. For there were pictures in those words; pic- 
tures of her Tartar ancestors as they had been 
seven hundred years before ; pictures of wars and 
plunder and blood, and all the triumphs of medie- 
val conquest! 

Hers was a wonderful word-picture. So won- 
derful was it, in fact, that it reeled off before my 
eyes, clear as a motion-picture, the spectacular 
panorama of the landing in Borneo, of the fight- 
ing ! 

I swished aside the thick tapestry of Time. I 
saw those nine Tomans of Tartars. Tartars were 
everywhere, numerous as a swarm of bees. For 
in each Toman I counted ten thousand men! A 
horde of Mongol myrmidons, men small of eye, 
leathery of complexion, they were; men encased 
in armor of buffalo hides and steel and silver and 
gold; men armed with long bows and arrows, 
swords and maces, lances and tomtoms and great 
shields! Horsemen rode ahead to reconnoiter, 
and horsemen rode in the rear and on either flank; 
and behind each horseman was a foot-soldier, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


135 

mounted on the crupper and armed with lance, 
longbow and arrows ! 

The arrows of those Tartars, the poisoned darts 
of their enemy, the Dyaks, flew through the air 
like rain. Tartar horses streaked back and forth, 
their bellies almost scraping the ground. The 
color of that ground was no longer green, but 
red with blood ! 

I saw all, all ! I saw the Dyaks, clad in padded 
hides of native animals, their ears slitted and 
weighed down to their shoulders with barbarous 
ornaments and their only arms, long sumpitans, 
curved swords and hair-tasseled shields, fighting 
on foot, manfully. But the Tartars were too quick 
and too many for them. Rank by rank, they re- 
treated slowly back into the palisading growths 
of the jungle. 

Followed then, in the rippling notes oi Lip-Plak- 
Tengga!s words, pictures of plunder and devasta- 
tion and loot. From Sarawak to Sandakan, and 
from Sandakan to Samarinda, the Tartars con- 
trolled the Bornean coast. From the Sultans of 
Brunei and Sarawak and Koetei, they demanded 
tribute. And that tribute — ^tribute of bells with 
pearls for tongues, fishes with eyes of rubies, and 
crescents and moons and suns with discs and rays 
of gold — all that tribute, they trussed up for their 
Supreme Khan of Khans. 

ArreT* sang the High Priestess, her arms 
fluttering down to her sides like golden wings. 
“ Behold ! That is the treasure of the Poonan 


THE STRANGE STORY 


136 

to-day, the treasure of the Stone Doho, the treas- 
ure all about thee ! For, ere that treasure could 
be collected in its entirety, a courier arrived from 
Tartary bringing word to Genghis Khan that there 
was treachery and revolt in Persia, the negorei 
he had but lately abased. Three Tomans of Tar- 
tars the Great Khan left behind under command 
of his third-born son, Yeh-Lu Apushka, to govern 
the land he had conquered in Borneo. With 
the other six Tomans and all the junks, Genghis 
Khan sailed away. 

“ We never saw the Great and Good One more. 
Never more, since Yeh-Lu Apushka obeyed the 
Sending of the Sword, have we been governed by 
male issue of Genghis Khan. And seven hundred 
years passed, but no one came. Yet there was a 
promise of a Coming. In the Sending of the 
Sword it was said that another would come who 
would have red hair and blue eyes. He would be a 
Man-Child of Genghis Khan! 

** Arre! And now you come 1 And though you 
are not in kingly raiment, though you have come 
to us in tatters and without scepter or sword, you 
have the same red hair, the same red beard, the 
same blue eyes as had Genghis Khan! Thus do 
we know you to be a son of that Supreme Khan 
of Khans! You are the Man-Child of Genghis, 
the Great and Good! Ahe! You are the Man- 
Child Who Was To Come! ’’ 

I leaped afoot. Her words ringing through the 
rind of my being like shots on a bull’s-eye, lifted 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


137 

completely out of myself, I leaped afoot before 
that singing High Priestess. 

At my action, as at a signal, her voice rose into 
a scalp-tightening scream. 

“People of the Poonan, behold!” she 
screamed. “ Is he not the Man-Child of Genghis 
Khan? Li-liat; look!” And she lifted one 
platinum-banded arm and dramatically pointed be- 
hind me. 

Mohong Wook and the Gunner fell back. I 
swung round. 

The two Chiefs, as I swung round, pulled down 
with one jerk that mat of pleached pandanus which 
had formed a curtain across the rear of the dais. 
Behind it, draping from the knobby bamboo pole 
like some wonderful tapestry, was a rug — a rare 
old Chinese rug. Old it was as those rare rugs 
which the soldier-vandals of the Allies tore from 
the Temple of Heaven in the Third Inner City of 
Pekin at the time of the Boxer outbreak; yet, as 
with those rare old rugs, the colors of this rug 
were vivid and glowing as moonlight, undying and 
imperishable as Time ! 

Ten feet high by forty feet long it was. There 
was, wondrously woven on it, an effect of a light- 
blue sweep of sky, a greenish floor of earth and 
standing in the exact center, immediately behind 
the Throne, facing me, his right hand on the nos- 
trils of a waiting horse, the life-size figure of a 
man. A monolith of a man he was, wide-spread, 
flat-muscled and over six feet tall. His beard and 


138 THE STRANGE STORY 

hair were red as rubies! His eyes were blue — 
blue as azurite 1 He was the likeness of Genghis 
Khan! 

Ahe! came in a terrific shout from that mul- 
titude behind me. Seek laha wook! Hair red 
as blood! Eyes blue as the sky! One and the 
same! Genghis Khan and the Man-Child! 
Arre! 

I stood up, staggered, overwhelmed, almost 
affrighted. That shout burst upon my head, 
sloughing over my brains, like liquid fire, com- 
prehension, complete comprehension, of the why- 
fore of all that had befallen me. 

Genghis Khan, that world-girding conqueror, 
that long-dead Lord of all the Tartars, had looked 
like me ! Yes; like me with my blue eyes and red 
hair and thick red brush of beard! 

I remembered then and of a sudden, despite 
the whirling of my staggered brains, that as a 
youth I had read that identical startling descrip- 
tion of Genghis Khan in Marco Polo’s famous 
book of travel. The very words of that long- 
forgotten description shot then, in vivid flashes, 
through my head. 

“ All the descendants of Yesugai, father of 
Genghis,” the Venetian had written, “ are dis- 
tinguished by blue eyes and reddish hair ! ” 

And I, Willyum Hyde, “ out ” from England 
after orchids at the end of the Nineteenth Century, 
but just now after the Green, Green God — I was 
believed, by these Poonan, to be a lineal descend- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


139 

ant of that great Tartar monarch of the Middle 
Ages! That was why all the Golden People — » 
from the green-eyed Marshal Queen, the haughty 
High Priestess, down to the poorest of the Poonan 
— had looked with so much wonderment into my 
eyes, had so childishly felt of my red hair, of 
my red beard 1 

I looked as Genghis Khan had looked seven 
hundred years before ! I had red hair, blue eyes. 
I was, forsooth, the promised Man-Child of 
Genghis Khan! 


140 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XIV 

WHEREIN HYDE FEELS HE HAS 
LOST ETERNALLY THE MARSHAL 
QUEEN, GOLDEN FEATHER OF 
FLAME 

There I stood, towering above all that bow- 
ing, shouting multitude (Hyde went on). Well, 
as I stood there, I felt a sudden qualm for myself. 
In a heap I realized what a tremendous imposture 
I was living and acting before the very eyes of 
all those people ! 

And yet, as though to add overwhelmingly to 
that imposture, the nine youngish Priests, bearing 
the Robe of Holies, stepped up behind me now, 
and laid that Robe of Holies upon my shoulders ! 
Two tasseled cords of silk bound that Robe in 
front so that it could not fall off. That Robe of 
Holies fell about me now, from shoulders to 
ankles, like some glorious cloak. 

It was the very Robe of Holies that the blue- 
eyed red-haired son of Genghis Khan, Yeh-Lu 
Apushka, himself had worn. This and more than 
this, I learned afterwards. I learned that the 
only ones that had worn it since Yeh-Lu Apushka 
were the Orlok Radenajos of the Poonan who 
were direct descendants of that son. And they had 
worn it only once a twelvemonth when, like the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


141 

Shinto worshipers of Japan, they had made rever- 
ence to the graves of their ancestors; and again 
when, in the due order of succession, they had 
been exalted to the Nine-Times-Nine Throne. 

It was too heavy to permit of more use than 
that. That Robe of Holies weighed fully fifty 
pounds. It was thus heavy with the jewels which 
those Marshal Queens of the Poonan had added 
to it since the time of Yeh-Lu Apushka, the First 
Raj of the Wild Men of the Wilds. 

And now it was upon my shoulders ! And be- 
yond that white balustrade, that stupendous as- 
semblage was bowing nine times before me and 
singsonging in a great voice : 

Arre! Behold! The Toewan Orlok Raj! 
Ahe!^^ 

I knew then what all that meant — I who was 
thought to be another son of Genghis Khan him- 
self I They were making me the Toewan Orlok 
Raj — the Great Marshal King of the Poonan 1 
I knew then, I say; and then, immediately on the 
back of it, I remembered. With a cold stilling of 
heart, I remembered. That was why my beauti- 
ful Golden Feather of Flame had mourned because 
of my coming ! I was usurping her queenly crown ! 
That was why she had not appeared even during 
this great ceremony in the Stone Dobo! She had 
known I would take her place 1 

I was troubled, I tell you, terribly troubled. 
All along I had felt hope that sometime, some- 
how, I should win to that high and mighty Golden 


THE STRANGE STORY 


142 

Goddess. But the way of women I well knew! 
That insane hope died. A weight of fear down- 
bore my heart more even than that heavy Robe 
of Holies downbore my shoulders. 

“ She’ll hate me 1 ” each fearful thump of my 
heart told me. “ She’ll hate me now because I 
have pulled her down and climbed above her 
head!” 

I did not know what to do. I was in a trap. I 
did not want that position of power. I wanted to 
tell the Poonan so. I wanted to shout: 

“ I’m not the Toewan Orlok Raj! I’m not the 
Man-Child of Genghis Khan at all! I’m only 
Willyum Hyde, Willyum Hyde ! I’m only a poor 
orchid-chaser who loves your Queen! ” - 

One thing stopped me. It was a dreadful thing. 
If I shouted that, I would lose not only that posi- 
tion of power; I would lose the Green, Green 
God, my head, the Golden Goddess — everything! 
The Poonan in their wrath for my having duped 
them, would rise up and kill me! 

I tell you, what to think, what to do, had never 
before seemed to me such tremendous questions. 
For a fleeting moment, indeed, a mad plan seized 
me. I would grab up the Green, Green God, 
shrug out of that Robe of Holies, leap over the 
white balustrade, down the nine stairs, and out of 
that cave-temple between the rows of women ! 

I had lost all hope, I swear, of ever winning 
that green-eyed Marshal Queen. She could never 
reciprocate my love, now. I must leave her be- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


143 

hind. I must leave the jewels, that Robe on my 
shoulders — ^all, all behind me! I only would at- 
tempt to escape with the Green, Green God to the 
outside of the crater, and civilization! 

But the plan came still-born. I looked over 
the rows and tightly packed rows of Golden 
Women beyond and below me, the double line of 
men against the walls. All their eyes were on me. 
I knew for a certitude then, I never would be 
able to get out of that Dobo with the god; never 
be able to accomplish that mad feat alive ! 


144 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XV 

OF THE SENDING OF THE SWORD 

The evil-eyed High Priestess (continued Hyde) 
slumped to her knees on the white stone of the 
flooring before me. She looked up at me, as I 
towered above her in that Robe of Holies. And 
her eyes were wide now, her dark brown irises 
dull as with a kind of fear of me! 

Then, once again, she began speaking. But 
she did not sing her words; she wailed. With 
a sort of mournful abandon, her voice rose and 
fell and held for breathing intervals oh the oddest 
of notes. She wailed just as all those women had 
wailed when first I had entered the Dobo, 

To me, it sounded like the mourning keen of 
the Maori, the Tahitian; and I have heard some- 
thing like it at funerals in Honolulu, where the 
kahilis of black and white feathers have given 
place to hearses and modern undertaking appur- 
tenances, but where the primitive song of death 
still remains. That was it! It was a death chant, 
a wild unearthly death chant! 

I felt a suggestion of fear. But that came not 
only because of the unearthly qualities of her wail. 
There were pictures in that wail, also ; pictures not 
of the triumphs of war now, but pictures and pic- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


145 

tures of the hardships and miseries and terrible 
horrors of war. 

I forgot that Cyclopean columnated cavern. I 
forgot all those motionless men and women be- 
yond the balustrade and below, Mohong Wook 
and the Gunner behind, the Priests and Priestesses 
immediately before me, the Mandaii and Green, 
Green God and all the treasure right about. All, 
all were gone; and only sobbed in my ears the 
weird wail of Lip-Plak-Tengga. 

But, at that wail, I saw now the Tartars milk- 
ing their last camel, slaying their last ox, eating 
their last sheep on the coast of Borneo. They 
were surrounded. They were surrounded by 
Dyaks who came from the jungles and Dyaks who 
came from Banjermasin in a fleet of warboats. 
That fleet of warboats was like some Asiatic 
armada. In that fleet were many huge proas, 
a hundred tambangans and countless little go- 
bangs crowded to the gunwales with Dyak war- 
riors ! 

The Toman of Tartars stationed at Samarinda, 
ten thousand in all, tried to drive them off from 
landing. But the Dyaks far outnumbered the Tar- 
tars. They beat off the Tartars with paddles and 
sweeps. With their swords, they carved off the 
legs and heads of the swimming horses. The ten- 
inch-long darts of their sumpitans drove through 
the Tartar horsemen and the foot-soldiers 
mounted behind, and through and through them, 
binding them together like chunks of meat on a 


THE STRANGE STORY 


146 

spit! Tartar heads floated on the water like shed 
nuts of the cocoa-palm! It \ as carnage! 

Slowly, fighting hard but sadly decimated, the 
Tartars retreated back and back toward the jun- 
gles. Led by Yeh-Lu Apushka, with even the 
women and children fighting now, they forced a 
passage through the ranks of the Dyaks behind 
and took to the twilight sunken runways of the 
jungles. 

Through mire and grass-grown glade and inter- 
woven brush, between palisading palms and drip- 
ping ferns and huge-limbed trees, they made their 
way. The Dyaks pursued them closely. The 
Dyaks knew the jungles and the paths in the 
jungles. Time after time, they circled round them, 
cutting off reconnoitering detachments of horse- 
men and bodies of men thrown out on the flanks. 

For twenty days, without stopping to light a 
fire, through unending jungles the Tartars rode. 
They had not time nor any arrows to spare to 
shoot down animals of the jungles for food. They 
sustained themselves on the blood of the horses 
they rode ! They dismoifnted and opened veins in 
those horses and drank the blood as it spouted into 
their mouths; then closed the wounds with some 
rhubarb plaster, mounted and rode on ! 

And then, in the dawn of the twenty-first day, 
Yeh-Lu Apushka, riding ahead, sighted some 
miles away the volcanic peak of the Jallan Batoe. 
Next was found the tunnel through the rock, 
caused by the wearing process of the river from 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


147 

the crater. In marched the few surviving Tartars 
into the crater — their women and children and en- 
feebled horses. And here, in the narrow dark 
confines of the rock tunnel, they were able to 
gather enough strength to beat off the still pur- 
suing Dyaks. They were safe. 

The High Priestess wailed on; and I saw Yeh- 
Lu Apushka sending out, a short time later, a 
courier who was none other than Lip-Plak-T eng- 
ga!s ancestor, a Warrior High Priest. He was to 
give word of their plight and obtain help from 
the Tartars of the northern coast. If those Tar- 
tars were no more, as was greatly feared, that 
courier was to go on by boat to the court of 
Genghis Khan himself. 

Of black bosques of evilness and swelled rivers 
and broken walls of mountains, the High Priestess 
chanted; and I saw her ancestor, the courier, 
breaking through the sweating lush and monster 
growths of the jungles, following through a dark- 
ness that was damp the River Barito to its source 
in the uplands of Sarawak, and then climbing down 
those uplands to the coast. 

But the Warrior High Priest did not meet with 
any band of Tartars. All the Tartars of Borneo 
had been wiped out completely by the Dyaks, 
save only those few hundred Tartars in the crater 
of the Jallan Batoe. And so it was that, in the toll- 
ing of the chant, I came to see that Warrior High 
Priest embarking in disguise on a Malay proa. 
The coast of China hove in view during the full- 


THE STRANGE STORY 


148 

ness of the second moon; then the golden domes 
and silver towers and marble minarets of Kai- 
pingfu, the City of Peace and the Imperial Resi- 
dence of Genghis Khan. 

Rose then, before me, the sumptuous court of 
the Tartar Khanate ; and I saw that Supreme Khan 
of Khans seated on his golden throne in a robe of 
crimson silk with a girdle of gold. In his right 
hand he wielded a scepter made of a solid bar of 
gold and topped off by a monster ball of ruby. Be- 
side him, seated upon the golden throne on his 
left hand and robed in a gown of crimson damask, 
with bodice ribbed with gold, was the Khatun of 
the Fair Breath, Burte Fujin, his favorite wife. 

The High Priestess’ wailing voice broke with 
emotion — and I seemed to hear her ancestor’s 
voice break with grief as he recited to Genghis 
Khan what had befallen his legions beyond the 
seas. Genghis dropped his ruby scepter. With 
terrible anger his small blue eyes gleamed, his 
leathery face went as red as his beard and hair. 
He grabbed up his great sword. 

“The Tartars of Borneo are defeated?” he 
cried in a mighty voice. “ Then those Tartars 
must die! No Tartar gives quarter to the de- 
feated; no Tartar, when defeated himself, should 
expect to live. He should die. He should die by 
his own hand, for he no longer may ride with 
undefeated Tartar warriors! 

“ Therefore I send by you, O Warrior High 
Priest, the Menacing Mandau. The law of that 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


149 

Sending must be obeyed. All the Tartars of 
Borneo — aye, to the last man — must carry out 
the Sending of the Sword. I look to my Man- 
Child, Yeh-Lu Apushka, to fulfill that Sending. 
If he does not fulfill that Sending, another Man- 
Child shall come from Tartary. Then shall the 
reckoning be ! ” 

Burte Fujin grasped his sword-arm. She 
pleaded piteously with her tears for the Tartars 
of Borneo. She knew what dread law was at- 
tached to that Sending ! But Genghis Khan thrust 
her aside. He sent back to the Jallan Batoe by 
that same courier his great sword, a massive 
curved affair — the very ivory- and jewel-hilted 
mandau on my right hand! 


THE STRANGE STORY 


150 


CHAPTER XVI 

AND OF THE SIN OF THE POONAN 

Came then, in the intoning of the chant (Hyde 
hurried on), the picture of a great gathering in 
this very cave-temple of the Stone Doho. Twelve 
moons had come and gone in the while that the 
courier had been on his journey and the Tartars, 
all that while, had busied themselves in enlarging 
the natural caves in the monster stones, in fashion- 
ing out others, and in carving and adorning this 
most unique and hugest cave of all. 

I saw that great gathering, and then I saw Yeh- 
Lu Apushka come out upon the raised dais, 
wrapped in a robe of salmon-colored silk, the 
sword of Genghis Khan in his hand. With that 
sword, exactly after the fashion of hara-kiri as 
it is practiced in Japan to-day, he was supposed 
to wipe out the disgrace of defeat by disembowel- 
ing himself! 

There before all his people, just as prescribed 
by the Sending, Yeh-Lu Apushka killed himself. 
In a hideous heap, he fell to the white flooring, 
the blood from his torn stomach dyeing to a thick 
red the whiteness of that flooring, the salmon-pink 
of the robe. 

Wherefore, Flower of the Silver Star walled, 
because his blood — the blood of a Khan, of the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 15 1 

First of the Borneo Tartars — had soaked Into 
that robe, that robe thereafter became a hallowed 
vestment. It became the Robe of Holies, so 
heavy with jewels upon my shoulders at that 
moment ! 

In a wild stampede then, the Tartar men had 
made toward the dais. They were supposed to 
follow the suicidal example of their Raj, Each 
man in the order of his rank down to the least and 
last man, all were supposed to wipe out the dis- 
grace of defeat with that sword of Genghis Khan. 
That was the dread law of the Sending. 

But the Tartar women flung themselves before 
them. 

“ Wait, wait! ’’ they cried. “ Do not obey the 
Sending until we have spoken ! And why should 
you obey that Sending? Why should you obey the 
law of Genghis Khan at all? Did Genghis Khan 
send you aid In your last extremity? Nda, nda! 
Only his sword he sent ! 

“ Therefore do not kill yourselves with that 
sword! Do not obey Genghis Khan any more! 
Set up a Khanate here separate from that of 
Genghis Khan! Genghis Khan can never touch 
you ; you are safe here. Li-liat; look ! There are 
walls of living rock all about; Inside, in this crater. 
Is a place that Is a garden of plenty. Why then 
disembowel yourselves ? Why abandon yourselves 
with Yeh-Lu Apushka Into the black abyss of 
Abaddon? Live, live, and we shall make thee 


THE STRANGE STORY 


152 

happy I Have paradise on earth, for it is here, 
it is here, it is here I ” 

The men succumbed to the temptation. There 
were promises irresistible in the words, in the eyes, 
of their women! 

The First Raj of the Borneo Tartars, Yeh-Lu 
Apushka, had left behind when he had obeyed the 
Sending of the Sword, a little daughter who was 
golden-haired and blue-eyed. They made her 
their Orlok Radenajo, It was contrary to all 
their history, all their Tartar institutions of male 
rulership ; but they had cut away from most things 
that savored of Tartary. They made her the 
Marshal Queen of the Orang Poonan, which was 
the name they took and which means in Dyak, 
Wild Men of the Wilds. 

In the tolling of the wail now, I saw the pas- 
sage of years and I saw, all through those years, 
the Poonan living on, a pure-blooded Tartar stock, 
speaking a language of bastard Dyak and Malay 
and Tartar. That was the only taint they allowed 
into the Jallan Batoe. Through seven hundred 
years they lived without allowing any other race 
to mix their blood with theirs. They were like 
the San Bias Indians of Panama in that. No 
Dyaks, Malays or Boegis were permitted to enter 
the Field of Stones. The Poonan were ethnically 
pure. 

The women ruled the men and that was their 
law. You see, the women who had followed the 
expedition and survived the travails of the jungles 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


153 

were very few and, naturally, the First Poonan 
had well-nigh worshiped the ground upon which 
they had walked. Also, those few women had 
been the tempting reason why they had dared to 
disobey the Sending of the Sword, and for that 
they were fearfully thankful. It was a Millen- 
nium of Woman. 

But, above all, the women held them in such 
subjugation because of two very good reasons. 
The men, they said, had proved disastrous failures 
as khans and couriers and councilors. Wherefore, 
from that precedent of a Marshal Queen, they so 
reversed the conventions of the Tartars as to 
make it a law that only female descendants of 
that First Queen were supposed to rule, only 
female descendants of that Warrior High Priest 
were supposed to be High Priestesses, and only 
the old women of the Poonan were supposed to 
form the Councils of the Queens. The men could 
only become Adjies or inferior Chieftains, and 
lesser Priests. That new law gave into the 
women’s hands all governing power. 

The other reason, however, was a far more 
cogent reason. It was a threat. 

“ Disobey us,” the women always threatened 
the men — “ disobey us, and we shall send word to 
Tartary that you still live! Then shall come 
among you a man of Genghis Khan’s issue, that 
Man-Child Who Was Promised! And that 
Man-Child shall come to command you to carry 
out the law of the Great Khan. He shall come 


THE STRANGE STORY 


154 

to command you to carry out upon yourselves the 
Sending of the Sword! ” 

It was like the foretold coming of the Messiah. 
Only the Man-Child of Genghis Khan was to 
come not in the role of a savior. He was to 
come in the awful role of a destroyer. 

Because of my red hair and blue eyes, I was 
that Man-Child 1 And though I was single- 
handed and alone, they feared me ! For the High 
Priestess before me was bowing her snaky tresses 
to the white stone of the flooring now, and wailing 
in a kind of dread: 

“O Mopeng~Lon of Genghis, Toewan Baik! 

0 Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and Good! 
Do not command of thy people — the Poonan — the 
Sending of the Sword ! ” 

The Priests and Priestesses, the Gunner and 
Mohong Wook, that whole stupendous assem- 
blage before and below me — all now took up that 
wail. They wailed in a chant of unmistakable 
dread: 

“ O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good! Do not command of thy people — the 
Poonan — the Sending of the Sword ! ” 

It was the selfsame death chant they had wailed 
when first I had come into that cave-temple. But 

1 understood now the words they uttered. I 
understood what it was, who it was they dreaded. 
They dreaded me ! 

I was the Destroyer! I was a more dreaded 
destroyer to these Poonan than Siva is to the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 155 

Hindoos ! With a word, I could make them kill 
themselves! I was the Destroyer! I held all 
these Poonan in the hollow of my hand ! I could 
crush them; I could squeeze whatever I wanted 
out of them ! I, Willyum Hyde, could make them 
do anything, anything! I could make them give 
up to me their precious .Green, Green God! I 
could make them give up to me their Goddess, 
even more precious to me — Golden Feather of 
Flame ! 

That was it! I would get the Green, Green 
God now ! I would get the Golden Queen ! Mad- 
ness coursed like fire through my veins. I was 
mad with the knowledge, the absolute knowledge, 
of my dread power over all those wailing people. 
On my heels I turned. From that seventh kliau^ 
I grabbed up the Menacing Mandau of Genghis 
Khan ! 

Instantly, with an abruptness that was alarm- 
ing, the wailing of all those people ceased. They 
went silent, silent with unutterable terror. They 
knelt there, a thousand cold statues, silent, de- 
spairing, ready for death. 

The very world stood still, waiting. 

And then! Then I felt that High Priestess 
clinging to my knees, rising afoot by clutching 
my legs, my waist; snuggling up at last against 
my bared chest. 

Nda, nda, O Man-Child of Genghis ! ” she 
pleaded, her eyes begging into mine quite as 
Salome’s must have begged into Herod’s. “ Do 


156 


THE STRANGE STORY 


not kill all the Poonan, no, no ! But if you must, 
if you must kill all the Poonan, let me live — me 
only! — let me live! I love you, O Toewan Raj! 
I do not wish to die, for I love you, love you ! ” 

Her arms slipped over my sword-arm and round 
the thrown-back Robe about my neck like flames 
of fire. The fragrance of her red, red orchid 
gown, of her hot breath, of her body, over- 
powered my senses. The warmth of her body, 
of her breasts pressing against my bare chest 
through the velvety thinness of that flowery gown, 
overpowered my whole being. I thrilled through 
and through. My eyes looked into her eyes — eyes 
that were deep and hazy and entreating. My 
head bowed toward her tempting round red lips. 

“Kiss me; ah, kiss me!” she breathed in a 
silky hot whisper, her form clinging warmly to 
mine as ivy to an oak. “ Kiss me, O Man-Child, 
for I love you! Let me live for you! Kill all 
the Poonan — ahe! to the last child — but kiss me, 
only kiss me! I have a reason. Kiss me, kiss 
me, O Precious Jade ! I will be the bride of your 
bosom ! ” 

I jerked my head back. Her lips were as a 
scarlet poppy, her eyes gave me visions of bliss — 
bliss eternal as paradise! Yet I jerked my head 
back. She be my bride ! I was insane with power, 
yes; but more, I was insane, now, with outraged 
pride. 

“You!” I shouted. “You, Ltp-Plak~Tengga! 
You be my bride ! Nda, nda! In all the world no 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


157 

woman may be my bride save the Golden Queen ! ” 
And with my free left hand, I thrust her from me. 

She clung to me — clung to me like a sleek warm 
cat! 

“ But I love you, O Man-Child! ” she pleaded 
passionately. “Kiss me; that’s all I ask — only 
kiss me ! I will live for you ! I will be the com- 
fort of your couch ! Kiss, kiss me ! ” 

I went wild with a Berserker rage. Full in her 
wickedly alluring face, with my open palm, I 
smote her. Down in a crimson heap, beneath the 
kliau of the Green, Green God, she cringed. 

I leaped up. Wild with rage, with power, the 
heavy Robe of Holies upon my shoulders, the 
Menacing Mandau of Genghis Khan in my right 
hand, I leaped up and full upon the swell of that 
great Nine-Times-Nine Throne. Madly in the 
air I waved that massive sword. More madly in 
English, from a throat that my rage made rasp- 
ing dry, I shouted down at that cringing High 
Priestess : 

“I’ve got you now, you she-cat! You pulled 
my beard! You doubted me! But I’ve got you 
now. I’ve got you now ! ” 

High on that Nine-Times-Nine Throne, I stood 
— one ragged red-headed white man dominating, 
with the overmastering confidence of his kind, that 
vast crowd of Golden People. Then indeed was 
I the Destroyer ! Above their heads, I waved that 
sword of fear! 

“ I’ve got you all ! ” I shouted, not aware in my 


THE STRANGE STORY 


158 

madness that I was shouting in English. “ In the 
hollow of my hand, I’ve got you all ! The Green, 
Green God is mine ! The Green, Green God — 
damme ! Aye, and the Queen ! ” 

The Poonan, of course, did not understand 
those words. But what they did understand was 
the exulting tone of those words, the theatening 
tone. And there was no mistaking that menacing 
wave of the sword! 

I was exulting because the Green, Green God, 
their Golden Queen, seemed at last within my 
reach. But they did not know that. Dread of the 
Sending of the Sword was uppermost in their 
minds. They thought only that I was holding 
them to that Sending, to the command of death! 
To them in truth was I the Destroyer ! For there 
burst from them now, from each man’s throat, a 
terrible scream. It was the scream of those who 
cry out against their fate, the scream of the 
doomed beseeching their only hope: — 

“ O save us, Belun-Mea Poa-Poaf ** they 
screamed. “ Save us, save us, our Queen ! ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


159 


CHAPTER XVII 

IN WHAT MANNER HYDE FULFILLED 
THE SENDING OF THE SWORD 

Now there was that in the scream of all those 
people (Hyde pursued) — that calling upon their 
lovely Queen to save them — which shocked me, 
swiftly and sweepingly, out of my madness. I 
stood up, my right arm still holding aloft the 
Menacing Mandau as though suddenly that arm 
had been turned to stone, my whole frame turned 
to stone with a kind of fear. Had I overstepped 
my power in leaping upon that Sublime Throne, 
shouting out and waving that sword so threaten- 
ingly? I did not know. But I stood there in a 
suspense unspeakable, icing through and through 
to the very marrow of my bones with that great 
fear. 

And then, with a swishing sound which shat- 
tered that suspense, from the right-hand sacristy 
the tapestries of rare feathers and gold and silver 
embroideries were brushed aside, and out upon the 
dais before me ran, impetuously ran, my own 
beautiful Golden Feather of Flame ! 

The Mandau of Genghis Khan fell to my side. 
My eyes, sick with love and longing, swam in a 
dizzy mist, my brains eddied in their brainpan, and 
quick as the beat of frenzied tomtoms throbbed 


i6o THE STRANGE STORY 

my heart. I stood and looked, marveled and 
thrilled in a rioting of the senses. 

Yet that wondrous Marshal Queen was not 
garbed in a colorful orchid gown like the Priest- 
esses, nor even in rich feathers like the Golden 
Women. Hers was a garb of sorrow, a garb of 
despair. But not at all a queenly garb of sorrow 
and despair. Hers was only a poor plain scanty 
garb, the garb of one humiliated and abased — a 
slave’s garb! 

A meager skirt of loose cogon grass, it was; 
a skirt of grass such as is worn by the brown maid- 
ens of Tahiti. From a string about her slim waist, 
that skirt draped down to a point shortly above 
the dimpling roundness of her knees. For the 
rest, she was as nude as Aphrodite Arising from 
the Sea; but, just as with Aphrodite, her nudity 
seemed only to enhance her beauty the more, 
showing off the superb golden mold of her to 
the utter eclipse of the beauty of all the women 
I ever had seen. 

A loosened mass was her hair, a loosened mass 
that fell about her unclad lovely form in thick long 
filaments that were streams of sunrays, and a 
loosened mass that veiled, as tenderly as an au- 
tumnal foliage, the breasts of her that were low 
and firm, but luxuriant as ripe pomegranates. 

Her head bowed under that disheveled weight 
of gold, her arms drooping at her sides, she came 
toward the Throne. A yard before that Throne, 
she halted. She raised her head. She looked up. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE i6i 

She looked up at me with eyes that were large 
and dewy, eyes that were beseeching, eyes that 
implored. Then, in utter abasement, she cast 
herself upon her knees before me and lifted up 
supplicating arms. 

“ O Man-Child of Genghis, the Great and 
Good!” she faltered breathlessly. “O Toewan 
Orlok Raj of all the Poonan! Please, please, I 
entreat you, condescend to hear my pitiful prayer. 
I beg you to be merciful. But I beg mercy not 
for myself. I beg mercy for my people, the 
Poonan. 

“ O Man-Child, graciously hear me. It was not 
these poor people who disobeyed the Sending of 
the Sword. It was their ancestors, now long dead 
and buried. And not the men of those ancestors ; 
it was the women of those ancestors who were to 
blame. 

“ It was the women of the Poonan who first ad- 
vised that we deny all allegiance to Genghis Khan, 
thy forefather and mine. It was the women of 
the Poonan who killed the few remaining horses 
of the Poonan so that the men could not leave the 
Jallan Batoe and fight their way back to the sea 
and the Great Genghis. Arre! It was those very 
women of the Poonan who, for seven hundred 
years, have kept secret this place from the Khans 
of Tartary. The mothers of all my people did 
that; their mothers and mine. 

“ But mine were the greatest sinners. Mine 
were the Orlok Radenajos, Mine were the 


1 62 THE STRANGE STORY 

women who held all the Poonan under their sway. 
Mine and mine alone kept the Poonan away from 
all fealty to Tartary and the issue of Genghis 
Khan. On them is all the blame for that Sin of 
Disobedience ! On them — ahe ! — and on me, their 
daughter ! 

“ O Man-Child of the Good Genghis, this and 
this only do I crave of thee ! Let my people live 
and let me die in atonement for that Sin. Spare, 

0 Toewan Raj, spare my people. Kill only me 
for the Sin of the Poonan! I am ready. Great 
Lord. My neck is bared. Bring down the Man^ 
dau of Genghis Khan and let my head be taken 
from my shoulders I My spirit is weak; with that 
sword I would kill myself ; but I am afraid, afraid ! 

1 pray thee, O Lord of all the Tartars; bring 
down that sword, I pray thee ! I am the Sacrifice I 
Kill me for the redemption of my people ! ” 

And, even as she pleaded, she bent her fore- 
head down to the curve of the Throne and, with 
a quick movement of both hands, threw her hair 
away from her ivory-white neck so that the loose 
bright mass sprayed a shower of molten gold over 
my shreds of boots ! 

Her neck was bared then, surely enough, from 
the glorious head of her down to her fair sweet 
drooping shoulders. Her neck was bared for the 
sacrifice. And she was waiting for me to bring 
down that great ugly sword, waiting for me to 
cut off her beautiful head I 

But even had I the heartless wish to comply 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 163 

with her plea, I could not have brought down that 
sword, much less lifted it. My hand was cold on 
that sword, nerveless. I was face to face with the 
one thing of all things I never had expected. It 
was the Great Unexpected. It shocked me. It 
shocked me as a stroke of paralysis would have 
shocked me, paralyzing my sword-arm, my whole 
frame, every part of me save my brains. 

But my brains! They sputtered and fumed 
with thoughts that were the searing fires of an ac- 
cusing conscience. I had thought she would be 
filled with envy and hate at my usurpation of her 
crown I I had thought I knew women I Ah, me 1 
Women and women I had met and known; but 
never — never in all my life — ^had I met one woman 
such as she! 

Offer herself as a sacrifice ! Beg to die for the 
Sin of all ! Give up crown, give up beauty, give 
up all life itself, for the sake of her subjects ! It 
was sublime. It was altogether too sublime 
for me in nobility of character, greatness of 
heart. 

I felt suddenly inferior, inexpressibly shamed. 
According to my own selfish standards I had 
judged her; and hers were far loftier standards. 
In my own mind I had given her a role to play, 
a role which would have been mine, I know, under 
similar circumstances. And she had answered; 
she had bowed herself before me; she had an- 
swered in the role of a martyr, the glorious role 
of a saint ! 


1 64 THE STRANGE STORY 

I was sickened with myself — sickened to the 
soul. Who was I, I thought, to be standing up 
there above all those terrified Poonan, waving 
that sword like some dread deity, some horrible 
merciless god? Who was I to be standing up 
there, while she who was far nobler than I, must 
kneel at my feet like a slave, lift up supplicating 
arms to me, and now wait with bowed head for 
me to rob her of all her beautiful life ? 

The infamousness of it all set me aflame with 
self-reproach and anger. I was incensed at my- 
self, furious. I would show her what I — I whom 
the Poonan believed was the Man-Child of 
Genghis Khan — I would show her what I thought 
of that Sending of the Sword ! I would show all 
those terrified Poonan what their Sin amounted to 
in the face of such an offer of sacrifice as that of 
their heavenly Queen! I would show them that 
that Sin was nothing to me now — nothing at all, 
even to the Man-Child ! 

I lifted up that heavy bejeweled sword. Down 
I brought that sword across my knee. With an 
angry surge of strength, one violent smash across 
my uplifted knee, I broke that massive blade into 
two pieces ! 

Upon that lofty Nine-Times-Nine Throne, I 
stood up thereat to my over-six-feet. I stood up 
thereat like a man inspired. With the ivory- and 
jewel-hilted half of blade in one hand, the curved 
gold-backed tip in the other, I raised my arms 
above my head in a commanding gesture. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


165 

“ People of the Poonan ! ” I cried out in a voice 
that was loud in all that hush. “ I have broken 
the Sword. Across my knee in two pieces I have 
broken the Sword. The Sword threatens you no 
longer. That Menace to the Poonan for seven 
hundred years is now a shattered useless 
thing ! 

“ I am the Man-Child Who Was To Come, and 
I have broken the Menacing Mandau of Genghis 
Khan. The Sending of the Sword is fulfilled. Be- 
cause your noble Queen begged to die in order 
to save you, I have forgiven you the Sin of Dis- 
obedience. My heart has been touched. Because 
of that offer of sacrifice of your glorious Queen, 
I have absolved you from the Reckoning ! 

“ Fear no more. The period of waiting and 
terror is at an end. No more does the Command 
of Death hang over you. Live, O Poonan, and 
be at peace. Live, O beautiful Orlok Radenajo, 
and be happy. The Sending of the Sword is ful- 
filled. I say that who am the Man-Child of 
Genghis Khan. The Sending of the Sword is ful- 
filled!” 

And I cast the two parts of that broken sword 
down beside the watching, crouching High 
Priestess. There was a metallic ring, loud as the 
echoes of my voice in all that stillness ; then, on the 
back of it, shattering completely that stillness, a 
terrific thunder of sound. The Poonan beyond 
and below that white balustrade had leaped, in an 
eye-wink, to their feet. The golden throats of the 


i66 


THE STRANGE STORY 


women were throbbing in a happy paean of re- 
joicing; the tomtoms and whistles, flutes and 
conchs of the stream of men along the walls were 
clamoring exultantly. All, all were voicing their 
joy and gratitude at their deliverance from death ! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


167 


CHAPTER XVIII 

RELATES HOW HYDE WON ETER- 
NALLY THE MARSHAL QUEEN, AND 
THEN LOOKED BACK OVER HIS 
SHOULDER 

But the beautiful Belun-Mea Poa-Poa at my 
feet, did not move (Hyde continued without a 
pause). Despite all that exultant clamor, she 
still knelt in that same heartrending attitude, her 
forehead bent upon the Throne, her glorious hair 
cascading over my shreds of boots, her neck bared 
for death! 

Tears of penitence and of a great love swimming 
across my eyes, I looked down at that fair deli- 
cate curve of neck, glinting up at me with its 
subtle powdering of gold. I was waiting, with a 
kind of anxious happy anticipation, for her to 
raise her superb head, her beautiful eyes to me — ■ 
to me who once had been the Destroyer, but who 
now, through the nobility of her example, was the 
Savior. 

But as a long moment passed and still she did 
not move, with a chilling of heart, a sudden dread 
smote me. She had admitted, with simple bravery, 
that she was afraid. Perhaps, I thought, from 
fear of the death she thoroughly had expected, 


i68 


THE STRANGE STORY 


there against that Throne at my feet, she had 
swooned away! 

I leaped down. I leaped down off that Throne 
and at my action, as at the sound of a communion- 
bell, the exultant clamor of all those Poonan 
stilled into a breathless hush. But I gave no heed 
to them. I bent over that purest and noblest of 
women. 

“ Do not fear, do not weep, O Golden Feather 
of Flame I ” I breathed huskily in Poonan into 
one tiny transparent ear. “ For your sake, for 
you alone, I have forgiven all the Poonan. I 
have forgiven all the Poonan because you asked 
that of me, because I can refuse you nothing 1 For 
I love you. Golden Feather of Flame! And cut 
off your head? — I could never cut off your head. 
Not even one tiny sunray of hair on your beautiful 
head ! I — I love you too much ! ” 

A tremulous movement, for all the world as 
though suddenly she were awakening, seemed to 
sweep at my words through her sweet form. 

“ Ah, look up, look up at me ! ” I stammered. 
“ Look up into my eyes. There is love there, 
Golden Feather of Flame. Love for you. I love 
you, O glorious Queen; yes, I do love you! ” 

Quite suddenly, she looked up at me through 
her golden skein of hair, her face beneath rosy as 
the dawn. 

“ But,” her lip quivered, “ but you — you are 
the Man-Child of Genghis Khan, the Toewan 
Orlok Raj of all the Poonan ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 169 

Ahe!^* I agreed quickly; then impulsively: 
“ And you, Golden Feather of Flame — say but 
the word, and you shall be forever the Toewan 
Orlok Radenajo of all the Poonan and — ^and my 
Queen! For I love you, Belun-Mea Poa-Poa; I 
love you, love you, love you 1 ” 

Her curving silky brushes of lashes modesdy 
shaded her greenish downcast eyes, and then quite 
as suddenly as she had looked up, just so suddenly 
did she bow her glowing face before the ardor, 
the rapture of my gaze. 

For I was aflame now with that burning desire 
for her. I bent close to her golden form. With 
an awed intake of breath, bodily I lifted her to 
her little arched feet. She seemed as light in my 
arms as a gossamer of down. I held her in my 
arms. The warm softness of her body, the silky 
smoothness of her golden-ivory skin, but above 
and beyond all, the ineffable sweet nearness of 
her, intoxicated me like some wine of the gods. 
I held her close. 

“ I do love you. Golden Feather of Flame 1 ” 
I whispered. “ I want you. I dearly want you 
to be my bride 1 Lift up your lips, my Queen — 
lips that are like red petals — that I may kiss 
them 1 ” 

The Poonan had become strangely still, as I 
said, watching me in a sort of breathless hush. 
Well now, like an echo of my voice, softly and 
almost reverently, from a thousand throats, swept 
up a whisper from those watching Poonan : 


170 


THE STRANGE STORY 


“ He is going to kiss her ! The Man-Child is 
going to kiss Belun-Mea Poa-Poa! Look! He 
bends his head to kiss her 1 ” 

And so I had bent my head, truly enough, for 
my eyes were on those of the wondrous woman in 
my arms. Those eyes of her entranced me. They 
were wet with tears, those eyes, wet and lustrous 
with tears like two resplendent turquoises. And 
her voice, low and sweet, seemed liquid with 
tears. 

“ But I am not worthy of thee, O Man-Child ! 
she whispered from my shoulder. “ I am not 
worthy, though — though I do love thee! It was 
that first night — when I touched your beard, I 
think — when I first looked into your eyes ! ” 

As though my huge body were some form of 
stringed instrument through which her whisper 
had played, I thrilled through and through, then, 
in a transport of joy, of love. She not worthy of 
me — not worthy of Willyum Hyde! With soft 
caressing movements, I released her lovely head 
from the close embrace of my shoulder, brushed 
aside her sunrays of hair, tenderly tilted up her 
delicate chin and lowered my lips toward her lips 
— lips that were smiling up at me, now, like a 
budding red, red rose! 

And then ! A hand tugged at my left arm, as 
though to draw me away; a voice shrilled into 
my ear as though to stop me ! 

“ Do not kiss her, do not kiss her ! Oh, kiss 
not her. Great Man-Child; kiss me, only me! I 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


171 

love you, Raj. I love you more than Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa loves you! No one, no one on earth, 
loves you so much as I! ” 

Like a cat, she clutched at my arm, that High 
Priestess, and tried to swing me about, big man 
though I am. I did not see her face; my eyes 
were on Golden Feather of Flame’s eyes and the 
hearts of both of us throbbed in our eyes, be- 
witching us, enchaining us, drawing us together in 
a fullness of love. I did not see Lip-Plak-Tengga! s 
face, I say, but I knew from the shrill of her 
voice that she was beside herself with envy and 
despair. She wanted to stop me from kissing my 
beloved; but my eyes were on my beloved’s and 
nothing could stop me! 

I flung my left arm free. With that freed left 
arm, I shoved the High Priestess aside. I shoved 
her aside quite brutally, I suppose; but really I 
was hardly conscious of her — ^hardly conscious 
that she had spoken and acted. All I knew was 
that my lovely loved one was warm and close in 
my arms, that my eyes were on hers and that her 
rose-bud lips were turned temptingly up to me — 
the willing gift of love ! 

“ Mine, mine — all, all mine ! ” I whispered, and 
my hot lips touched those of the Golden Queen. 

Her lips were as soft as roses, as warm as life 
itself, as moistly sweet as honey, and as fragrant 
as the flowers of some sweet dream with that de- 
licious breath of her. I drank of them as of 
some heady delirious wine. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


172 

She sighed languorously, luxuriously. Then, 
ardently, her lips answered mine ; her arms circled 
round my neck like golden coils of seduction; and 
her velvety body nestled close and cozily within 
my arms against my bare chest. 

Thus, on that lofty dais before all those Poonan, 
we stood, swaying slightly, our hearts tumultuously 
throbbing against each other in ecstatic unison, 
our lips clinging rapturously in that first kiss. We 
took no note of the passage of time; we took no 
note of the eyes of all those Poonan — they might 
as well never have been there. We were together, 
we two souls, and there was no one else at all 
upon the whirling earth. We clung together in 
an ecstasy sublime. 

It was the holiest moment of my life. 

But all things must come to an end, and so even 
with that rapt embrace — though how long later 
it was, I know not. But of a sudden, breaking 
through the enravishing spell of that embrace, a 
hand once again tightened upon my left arm, and 
once again the voice of Lip-Plak-Tengga, calm 
and icy now, spoke into my ear : 

“ You have kissed her. Before all the Poonan, 
you have kissed her. And the Poonan marriage 
ceremony consists only of a kiss! 

“ Ah, you did not know that, you fool 1 ” — as 
I started involuntarily — “ But you would not kiss 
me, even though I begged you, and so you are well 
served. Belun-Mea Poa-Poa is your bride. You 
have kissed her before us all. Your bride she is 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


173 

and your Queen she must become. But you will 
have your regrets, O Man-Child. You shall re- 
gret many, many times, you fool 1 ” 

I had started involuntarily, but for a fact, in- 
deed; for there was that in the High Priestess’ 
words, scornful though those words were, which 
told me of a great happiness. I trembled all over 
with that happiness. For I knew for a surety 
now, from the very bitterness of Lip-Plak- 
Tengga^s words, that that first kiss of Golden 
Feather of Flame was no passing bit of paradise. 
Rather, it was the precious key which had opened 
to Golden Feather of Flame and me the gates of 
a paradise on earth, an enchanted eternal para- 
dise ! We were married by that kiss, absolutely, 
irrevocably ! 

I felt awed. I looked back over the various 
steps that had led up to my marriage and I seemed 
to see myself acting like a man inspired. I saw 
myself refusing Lip-Plak-Tengga! s beseechings 
that I kiss her. I lived again that holiest moment 
of my life when I kissed my lovely bride, Golden 
Feather of Flame. I must have been inspired! 
My wildest fancy never could have conceived that 
the Poonan held the first kiss sacred. A kiss the 
whole ceremony of marriage 1 That was too 
primitive a rite, too lacking in ceremonies and 
solemn services, for a civilized mind, without 
some foreknowledge, to imagine I 

And yet, when you consider it, a first kiss — to 
kiss and be kissed by one you love and who loves 


174 the strange STORY 

you — that is a holy thing. It partakes of the na- 
ture of a sacrament It is a thing of heaven, not 
of earth. It is the spiritual essence of the cere- 
mony of marriage. 

Even with us white men, it is a spiritual part, 
if not the very essence, of our ceremony of mar- 
riage. There is the kiss at the altar. After the 
words of consent, the blessing, the gold band 
that binds, comes, even with us, the kiss at the 
altar — that spiritual rite of our ritual of mar- 
riage ! 

But only a very primitive, simple-hearted peo- 
ple could feel the beautiful simplicity of a kiss 
alone so strongly as to make that kiss the whole, 
complete, absolute ceremony of marriage. And 
the Poonan were a people, simple-hearted and 
primitive. So they had made a sacrament of 
heaven of the first kiss ! 

In all sincerity and love and humbleness, I had 
kissed her whom I loved. With that kiss, there- 
fore, I had married her 1 I was a fool, no doubt, 
just as Lip-Plak-Tengga called me, just as I al- 
ways have been; but oh! at that time, what a 
happy, happy fool! 

Sounded in my enraptured ears then, it seemed, 
the very voice of my own happiness. Rang 
through the vast cavern of the Stone Doho, the 
joyous treble of bamboo flutes and cogon whistles, 
the blissful blare of horn conchs, the erratic ex- 
ultant beat of tomtoms, and the music of count- 
less voices, singing in glorification: 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


175 

“ Ten thousands years of life to the Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan, the Toewan Orlok Raj of all 
the Poonan! And ten thousand years of life to 
Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, his bride and Toewan Orlok 
Radenajo! 

I understood then. The Poonan were signifying 
not only their consent, but their felicity at our mar- 
riage. Gladly, with the blessing of a long life, 
they were giving their Queen to me! Now in 
truth was she my beautiful bride, my Golden 
Queen I 

Like a man crazed with happiness, I picked up 
that wondrous woman who was mine, and with 
her like a rosy baby in my arms, leaped once again 
upon the swell of that Nine-Times-Nine Throne. 
I set her down upon her little pink toes. Then, 
with an action significant of our marriage-band 
and of our lordly estate, I gently put one arm 
about her soft shoulders and draped that Robe 
of Holies, so heavy upon my shoulders, about her 
lovely form, thus holding her under it and close 
to me as my most precious possession. My chest 
bulging with pride, I turned thereat and faced all 
the Poonan. 

But as I did, and the Poonan all bowed down 
and up, and down and up again, and their music 
swelled into a very thunder of glorification, of a 
sudden, beneath the kltau of the Green, Green 
God, my eyes caught a movement upon the part 
of the High Priestess, Lip-Plak-Tengga. 

Whether from physical weakness or the weak- 


THE STRANGE STORY 


176 

ness induced by overmastering rage, Lip-Plak- 
Tengga had slumped down, a moment before, be- 
neath the kliau of the Green, Green God. Yet, 
at this very moment, she was raising herself, in 
her now torn and bruised red orchid gown, from 
the white stone flooring. Her face was paled to a 
sickly saffron. Her eyes were uplifted to the 
face of my Golden Feather of Flame. And her 
eyes were terrible eyes. They were terrible with 
hate. 

I watched her with a subtle sense of fear. She 
got to her knees and then, like a stealthy cat, came 
crawling on all-fours toward the Throne. But 
suddenly, as though seized with a sharp spasm of 
weakness, she halted; her breath seemed to come 
with effort, and her breasts rose and fell con- 
vulsively. She clutched with both hands at her 
breasts. She clutched at her breasts and at that 
action I saw, in her right hand, a broken half of 
the Mandau of Genghis Khan! 

Quickly^ there on the Throne, I stepped before 
Belun-Mea Poa-Poa. And there seemed a need 
for me to step thus protectingly before my Queen. 
That half of sword in the right hand of the High 
Priestess was not the hilt and upper half. It was 
the curved half, the sharp tapering point; and 
that sharp tapering point looked to me like a dag- 
ger 1 I placed my body before that of Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa, I feared, I swear, that that High 
Priestess was about to try to stab my Queen I 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


177 

Beilin Mea Poa-Poa did not know, of course, 
the whyfore of my move ; but she obeyed my arm, 
now, as I gently placed her at my other hand — 
the hand of me farthest from Lip-Plak-Tengga, 
Then, still protectingly, I drew her close again 
under that Robe of Holies, and looked down at 
the High Priestess. 

Lip-Plak-Tengga was watching me. Her eyes 
met mine. And her eyes flashed to my eyes, now, 
a look of virulent hate, a look of the deadliest 
rancor. Then her eyes died, dulling as with some 
inward weakness. The sword-point fell from her 
hand and tingled upon the stone of the flooring, 
and as though overcome herself with that weak- 
ness, she slumped down upon both hands on the 
flooring. 

But she had not swooned. Drawn up like a cat 
on hands and knees, as she was, she was looking, 
steadily looking, through the space between the 
kliau of the Green, Green God and the Throne 
toward the rear of the altar dais. My eyes swept 
behind me over my left shoulder in a sort of fear- 
ful curiosity. I saw that ten-foot-high, forty- 
foot-long tapestry of a rare old Chinese rug; I 
saw again that life-size likeness of Genghis Khan 
worked in vivid threads upon it; and I even noted, 
for that rug was worn thin with age, the regularly 
spaced knobs of the bamboo pole upholding 
it, which showed through its thinness at the 
top. 

With a measure of relief but an increase in 


178 THE STRANGE STORY 

curiosity, I looked again toward the High Priest- 
ess below me. She still was staring toward that 
rug and there was that in her eyes now — a 
poignant entreating look — which caused me to 
think that she was about to beckon someone who 
awaited her word from a position behind me ! 
Her very mouth was open, as if she would voice 
a call! 

Yet there was no one behind me. I had seen 
that for a surety. It must be then — yes; it must 
be that there was someone behind that rug ! My 
eyes shot back over my left shoulder; then I shud- 
dered. That rug had moved 1 

There was no doubt in my mind about that. 
The left-hand end of that rug had rippled and 
swayed as in a breathing of wind. And yet the 
balls of red fire on either hand beneath me glowed 
and smoked upward in slim white pillars, without 
flexure, without wavering movement of any kind ; 
in all that cave-temple of the Dobo, there seemed 
not a disturbing breath of wind. For the Poonan 
had suddenly gone silent now, as though they too 
understood and dreaded that which I was trying 
to see. 

And that which I was trying to see was some- 
one who was behind that rug. It could be 
nothing else. Someone was walking behind that 
rug in the space which separated that rug from 
the white rear wall of the cavern. And he 
was walking clumsily, ponderously, lurching 
from side to side; for as he moved along from 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 179 

the left-hand end of the rug, undulations in that 
rug, where he brushed against it, showed out his 
ungainly progress. 

Directly behind that life-size likeness of Genghis 
Khan, he halted, swaying. There was an uncouth 
bulge in the thin old rug. That bulge outlined 
him, his enormous shoulders, his huge high head. 
Those shoulders of him bulged out against that 
rug above the head of the likeness of Genghis 
Khan. And that likeness was life-size, remember 
— over six feet tall! But he was far taller than 
the likeness; that likeness was as the likeness of 
a mere stripling to him 1 He must have been over 
seven feet tall 1 He was taller than I, I swear, and 
I was taller than any Poonan I 

But he was no pigmy Poonan. He was some 
Monster Man. And he was waiting behind that 
rug. He was watching me through eye-holes 
somewhere in that unfathomable rug! 

And I watched him, watched the colossal out- 
line of him, awed, terrified, trembling. I saw him 
go, ponderously, waving that tapestry of rug with 
ungainly lurchings, clutching at it, at times, with 
monstrous hands! 

And then he was gone — ^and I shivered all over 
with a cold sweat, arid felt as though I had lived 
through some age-long agonizing dream. I 
caught, as I came to myself, the triumphant 
calamitous look in the wickedly slanting eyes of 
Lip-Plak-Tengga. She had not bothered to 
beckon or call, once my eyes had noted that move- 


i8o THE STRANGE STORY 

ment of the rug; but I realized even then that, 
by some look or sign, she purposely had called 
up that Monster Man just to show me, in my 
moment of mastery, that there was a menace be- 
hind the Throne! 

I gave her that glance grudgingly, and there- 
upon turned quickly to Golden Feather of Flame 
on my other hand. And I became aware, now, 
that Golden Feather of Flame was looking up 
at my sobered face in a kind of distress. I folded 
her in my arms with commingled love and fear — 
as though, indeed, in my sudden strange terror 
of that Monster Man, I was afraid lest I should 
lose her from my side. 

Yet was I soon to lose her from my side. 

“ My King,” she whispered, her lip quivering 
with that distress, “ I am weary of the ceremony. 
Dismiss the Poonan, I beg; the hour grows late; 
and I must leave you for a time. This grass 
skirt is not befitting her whom you, the Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan, have chosen for your Queen and 
bride. And my old women of the Council, too, 
must bathe and anoint me with rich oils and 
unctuous substances. But I shall come to you soon, 
O my Toewan Raj; I shall come to you in the 
silken purple gown that all my mothers wore, 
each on her bridal night. I shall come to 
you in the Elephant Cave ere the noon of to- 
night! ” 

I held her close. 

“ Do not be long, O Golden Feather of Flame,” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE i8i 

I breathed. “ I will wait for you in the Elephant 
Cave ; I will wait for you, counting the moments 
till midnight. For you are all in all to me,” I 
added fervently — “ my Golden Goddess, my Mar- 
shal Queen, my beautiful bride, my life I ” 


i 82 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XIX 

IN WHICH LIP-PLAK-TENGGA PLEADS 
AND PROMISES 

I dismissed the Poonan (said Hyde). They 
backed out of the Doho, bowing deeply to me 
every few paces. Belun-Mea Poa-Poa left my 
side then, and disappeared through the feathery 
hangings of the right-hand sacristy. The High 
Priestess, followed by her Priestesses, had already 
withdrawn into the opposite sacristy. Only re- 
mained on the dais the Gunner, old Mohong and 
the nine Priests; and these nine Priests now 
stepped up to me, as I got down from the Throne, 
and removed from my shoulders the Robe of 
Holies. 

Accompanied or rather escorted by old Mohong 
and the Gunner, I made out of the Doho. Above, 
the heavens were crowded with stars — low, white 
sticky stars which lighted the Jallan Batoe palely, 
ghostily, as with a kind of twilight. In that 
vague twilight, beyond the radius of the reflected 
light from the Glowing Doho, the feathery 
growths and trees which lined the converging ave- 
nues stood out, still and flat and sharp-edged, 
like the painted wings of scenery on a deep empty 
stage — for the Poonan had all disappeared, by 
this time, into their various cave -homes. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 183 

It was with a new, a masterful assurance in 
my step and poise that I made out of that Dobo; 
for I was a different man, an altogether different 
man from that Willyum Hyde who, with fear and 
trepidation, had entered that Doho but a few 
short hours before. Then I had been uncertain, 
fearful, desperate; I had gone blindly where I 
was led; I had gone stumbling and trembling into 
that Doho in ignorance, in great fear of what 
awaited me there. 

But now — ^how different! The misgivings, the 
fears, and the terrible doubts which had made me 
then, weak and uncertain, thinly-armored against 
surprise and dismay, no longer hedged me round. 
No longer was I fearful, no longer desperate, no 
longer the blind pawn of Circumstance. I was 
King, now — King of the Poonan, King of the 
whole sacred Jallan Batoe I 

And I was unafraid — ^unafraid of the Poonan, 
unafraid of my future. I had dominated the 
Poonan and I had achieved to power — power 
that was unforeseen, power that was autocratic. 
From where I stood, at the top of the stone white- 
ness of those nine-times-nine stairs, I was master, 
as the saying goes, of all I surveyed. And thus 
would I go on. I would continue to dominate the 
Poonan. I would go on from strength to strength, 
from power to more autocratic power. 

The Priestess, Lip-Plak-Tengga? I no longer 
feared her. She, too, believed I was the Man- 
Child of Genghis Khan; she had helped to make 


THE STRANGE STORY 


184 

me, for a certitude, King of the Poonan ; and the 
most she could do now, would be to stick me with 
hate-filled glances, to worry me with the petty 
spites of an envious woman. The Monster Man 
Behind the Rug? A vapor, a mere shadow, a 
thing too unreal, too unsubstantial, altogether too 
preposterous to fear, now that the first shudder 
had passed. I felt safe, I tell you, in this strange 
new posture of affairs. I was sure of myself, abso- 
lutely sanguine of my destiny. 

Of course, there was the Green, Green God, 
that miraculous jewel which had lured me into 
the Jallan Batoe. Coming down that white flow 
of cathedral stairs, I asked myself did I still desire 
to steal that god. 

“ I am the Man-Child and King,” I told my- 
self, “ and as King and Man-Child, I can do any- 
thing now, anything. If I still want the Green, 
Green God, I can steal the Green, Green God. To 
be sure though, as Man-Child and King, I do not 
even have to steal it. I can walk right back into 
this Dobo and take the Green, Green God, as by 
divine right! ” 

But that night, as I came down the Dobo stairs, 
I doubted, gravely doubted, whether I wanted 
that god at all! 

Yet that was a doubt, I’ll admit, quite out of 
keeping with my character, with all my former 
hopes and strivings and determinations. Just to 
see that god and, somehow, to steal it, I had in- 
vaded this secret and dread place, I had outfaced 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 185 

all the Poonan. I had seen that god and, seeing 
it, I knew that it was a tremendous treasure; a 
treasure worth, out in the world, a thousand times 
its weight in gold. And I knew, too, that it was 
a marvel in itself alone, an exquisite work of 
art, a fascination, a thing to stare at and finger 
and desire to own. 

But I was a different Willyum Hyde, remember, 
an altogether different Willyum Hyde from that 
Willyum Hyde who had entered the Doho but a 
few short hours prior. Tremendous treasure 
though it was, fascination though it was, to me as 
I came down those stairs that Green, Green God 
was but a block of dead stone. Yes, cheap and 
worthless, paltry and tawdry it seemed to me 
then; for I thought of a living breathing woman 
who was a far more tremendous treasure to me, 
who was an immeasurably more exquisite and 
alluring fascination — Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, my 
bride, my all ! 

That was it! Love had changed me. I who 
had been hopeless in my love, now was victorious 
in that love. I had won Golden Feather of Flame ; 
with a kiss, I had married her; and now she was to 
come to me in the Elephant Cave, my all, my 
bride I Small wonder that I thought not of Lip- 
Plak-Tengga now; that I thought not of her Mon- 
ster Man Behind the Rug, nor even of the Green, 
Green God! My head and heart were high; I 
was happy, happy; and so long as Belun-Mea Poa- 
Poa were by my side, I would |)e most pleased — ■ 


1 86 THE STRANGE STORY 

pleased and content, Indeed — to be the Man- 
Child of Genghis Khan, the King of all the Poo- 
nan ! 

Aye, and like a blow, it smote me then that 
never, never could I leave this place where was 
Golden Feather of Flame ! I was chained here — 
here in the Jallan Batoe — ^by the shackles of a 
great love; shackles that were as Intangible as 
sunbeams, but as inexorable as iron bands I 
Wherever Golden Feather of Flame was, there 
verily must I remain. Nothing should force 
me to leave her — nor Lip-Plak-Tengga, nor her 
Monster Man, nor even desire for the Green, 
Green God ! 

And the words of the ancient Poonan women 
came back to my mind: 

“ Have paradise on earth, for it is here, it is 
here, it is here ! ” 

And I looked about me in the night — at the 
great Glowing Doho^ towering behind me ; at the 
palm-fringed Danau asleep like a sheet of glass 
beyond; and then up, up at the many remote wan 
candles of stars. And thus, looking up at one 
wan star as into a crystal of Fate, I said from 
my heart, but to myself : 

“ Yea, paradise Is here for you, Willyum Hyde, 
and here you must remain ! ” 

I turned thereat, with alacrity, upon my two 
attending Chieftains. We were arrived, at this 
time, at the foot of the stone stairs In the broad 
sweep of the palm-lined avenue before the Dobo. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 187 

AdjieSf* I said; “ let us go on to my Elephant 
Cave.” 

** Baiky O Toewan Raj/^ they assented in 
chorus. “ Good, O Great King.” 

And then on through the pallor of the star- 
lighted night, we walked, we three, up the shadowy 
Avenue of Palms toward my Elephant Stone. 

But suddenly, as we made up that avenue, from 
the shadow of a palm tree to one side, unexpect- 
edly rushed forth, like some frightened creature 
of the bosque, the High Priestess, Lip-Plak- 
Tengga — her bruised red orchid gown torn away 
from one golden shoulder, her black glossy hair 
fallen in disarray about her like so many hydra- 
heads, her face flaming and paling by turns, and 
her dark eyes lustrous in the night as with some 
inner stress of feeling. 

Like some wild creature, wounded and in dis- 
tress, she fluttered up to within three paces of me. 
She did not bow. Her voice shaking with that 
inner stress of feeling, she said hurriedly : 

“Tell them to withdraw! Tell the two Adjies 
to go 1 I would have a word with you alone, O 
Raj! ” 

Not knowing what else to do, in the startling 
unexpectedness of it all, I obeyed. 

Komite I ” I commanded almost automatically. 
“Go I Go, you two, out of earshot. Go on slowly 
toward the Elephant Stone.” 

“And do not dare to look back! ” she ended 
for me. 


1 88 THE STRANGE STORY 

With an obeisance to me, the two Chieftains 
withdrew. She watched them walk on ahead, her 
breasts agitated, her breath coming with effort. 
Struck a little stupid by the shock and surprise 
of her actions, I looked from the men, vanishing 
into the night, to her. She turned to me then, and 
her lustrous brown eyes swept into mine. And 
her eyes were lustrous, I now saw, with a look of 
desperate appeal ! 

“ O Raj,** she breathed tremulously, and she 
put one hand upon my arm; “why will you not 
love me? Am I not so beautiful as Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poaf Only love me and I will do anything 
for you — anything because I love you so ! ” 

I strove for a control of myself, for words; 
but ere I could speak, ere even I could steady 
myself, she went on — her hand tightening upon 
my arm, her voice vibrant with the earnestness of 
her plea: 

“ Listen, O Raj! You are not the Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan 1 I know that. I know that be- 
cause I am not like these foolish Poonan — they 
are but children who let me lead them! And 
because of more facts than one, I know that you 
are not the Man-Child Who Was To Come! 

“ Last night when you entered the Jallan Batoe, 
you said: ^ Kas, Kas Deewaf I’m after the 
Green, Green God ! ’ My ears heard you say 
that, and my brains did not forget, like those of 
the others, that you said that! This very day 
in the Elephant Cave, you questioned me. I knew 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


189 

then you knew nothing of the Poonan, nothing of 
the Man-Child of Genghis Khan; for though you 
quickly thought better of it, you almost asked me 
why you were called the Man-Child of Genghis 
Khan! 

“ Do not be angered at me; it is my great love 
for you, Raj, which tells me to speak now what I 
do know. And I do know that this very evening 
in the Stone Dobo, when you leaped afoot from 
the Nine-Times-Nine Throne and the two Adjies 
tore down at my command that pandanus curtain 
which is ever before the likeness of Genghis Khan 
on the old, old rug, you looked at that likeness on 
the rug and your eyes lighted up as though, all at 
once, a torch had been lighted inside your head. 

“But it was no torch! You were thinking 
inside your hpad. You were thinking: ‘ Genghis 
Khan had red hair like me ! Genghis Khan had 
blue eyes like me ! Genghis Khan had a red beard 
like me ! ’ With your mouth you said no word, 
yet I knew what was going on behind your lighted; 
eyes ! I knew, I knew ! ’’ 

I was hard hit. She had wounded Achilles in 
the heel, Willyum Hyde in his vital spot. Pale, 
shaken, speechless, almost unable to think, I stood 
before her. One faculty alone was left me. I 
listened. 

“You are the Great Marshal King of the 
Poonan now, but that is the wonder, the miracle 
of your life. For you came into the Jallan Batoe, 
not as a Khan of Tartary bent on carrying out the 


THE STRANGE STORY 


190 

Sending of the Sword, not as the Man-Child Who 
Was To Come! Footsore and ragged, you came 
into the Jallan Batoe, thinking you faced death, 
daring to face death! For you came because of 
the same mad motive that drove all those other 
footsore and ragged ones in here before you! 
You came after the Green, Green God! 

“ You are an Orang Mohong! You are no 
Tartar, no Man-Child of Genghis Khan! You 
are a White Man! You are a White Man, just 
like all those others who came before you and 
were either killed swiftly or slowly tortured until 
they died ! Only they all were black-haired, while 
your red hair has made you King! 

“ But you have dyed your hair ! You must have 
dyed your hair! Though you knew nothing of 
Genghis Khan until I told you, still you knew some- 
how there was a good reason why your hair 
should be red, your beard should be red ! With 
some red pigment, you dyed your beard, you dyed 
your hair! And your red hair has made you 
King! 

“ But for all that, you are an Orang Mohong 
just the same, just like all those others ! And just 
as all those others were after the Green, Green 
God, just so are you too after the Green, Green 
God! For even now, you are only awaiting the 
auspicious moment in which to steal the Green, 
Green God! ” 

I stood unmasked as an out-and-out impostor, 
a tremendous humbug ! And yet I had feared she 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


191 

had seen through my sham. From my first meet- 
ing with that High Priestess, I had feared she had 
seen through my sham. Now, for a moral certi- 
tude, I knew that she had seen through my sham ! 

Clattering to the ground went my whole armor 
of circumstance and clap-trap. I stood before her, 
stripped, naked, quivering with dread. For I felt 
all was lost with me — disastrously, irretrievably 
lost! 

She looked at me. She saw my agitation, my 
dreadful distress. And her face flamed, became 
transfigured with victorious love ; her eyes glowed 
in an unutterable ecstasy; and her voice, once 
vibrant with overwrought emotion, now lost its 
thin notes — lowered, softened, grew mellow, gen- 
tle, tender, tremulous with love 1 

“ But I love you, Raj! And I love you not 
because you are King; I love you for what you 
really are — a White Man, the Bravest of All 
White Men! For that, from the very first, I 
loved you. Many men of the Poonan have tried 
to kiss me and take me to wife; but that last 
White Man who came into the Jallan Batoe when 
I was a child and was tortured to death, I could 
not forget. I remembered him and, remembering 
him, I refused all the Poonan. I waited for a 
brave man to come like him who was tor- 
tured. I waited for a man to come, a White Man, 
who would be brave enough to face all the Poonan, 
singlehanded and alone; and a White Man who 
would not confess that he loved me, but a Brave 


THE STRANGE STORY 


192 

White Man who would force me to confess that 
I loved him! 

“ And then you came ; and though you were 
ragged and footsore, you were singlehanded and 
alone, and you faced all the Poonan, and for all 
that bravery I loved you. I watched you. I 
watched you with love moist in my eyes. I 
watched you for the proper moment to tell you 
that I loved you! 

“ That moment came, I thought, in the Stone 
Dobo this evening. But you thrust me aside. 
Twice you thrust me aside. Yet I do not hold that 
against you; I only love you the more for that! 
The Poonan then had erected you upon a pedestal, 
made you King, exalted you almost to the sub- 
limity of a god! You were beside yourself with 
the wonderful miracle of it all, and you did not 
understand. But now you know what I do know; 
and now you realize that what I do know, the 
Poonan may soon discover for themselves! 

“ O Toewan Orang Mohong! O Great White 
Man! Do not linger in the Jallan Batoe! Re- 
member that the Poonan took long to discover the 
real purpose of the White Men who came before 
you; but always, in the end, they discovered that 
purpose. And then they killed ! They killed the 
first three White Men, but the fourth and last 
White Man they tortured, slowly, horribly tor- 
tured ! 

“ And you, too, are after the Green, Green 
God! Yours will be the same ghastly fate as 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


193 

that last White Man ! Just as soon as you try to 
steal the Green, Green God, just so soon will the 
Poonan discover you for what you really are : — 
no Tartar, no Man-Child, no King ! Only a White 
Man — a White Man come after the Green, Green 
God ! And then — ah, then, shall the reckoning be ! 

“ O Bravest of All White Men, heed me now, 
I beg of you ! Do not linger in the Jallan Batoe. 
Do not linger to waste your strength on Golden 
Feather of Flame. Do not linger one night! 
Lengeau! Fly! Fly with me! Together, you 
and I and the Green, Green God, let us fly to-night 
from the Jallan Batoe ! ” 

Strenuously I made to interpose an objection; 
but her voice rang on, close to my ear, like the 
notes of a triumphing bell. 

“ To-night is the time ! The Poonan never 
will expect you to take the Green, Green God to- 
night. To-night they are elated in their deliver- 
ance from the Sending of the Sword. To-night 
is the time ! Leave all the Poonan, leave the Jal- 
lan Batoe, leave even Belun-Mea Poa-Poa behind 
you forever ” 

I cried out then. Her poisonous plea for me 
to desert Golden Feather of Flame stabbed me 
to the heart. As I never had cried out when she 
had shorn me of all my clap-trap, stripped me 
naked, I cried out then, in a great anger, at her 
attempt to rob me of whatever sense of chivalry, 
whatever qualities of manliness were mine! 

“ Be done, be done, Ltp-Plak-Tengga! I cried. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


194 

“ I a white man; but I’m man enough to stick 
by my marriage to Golden Feather of Flame! 
She married me straight and honest with a kiss, 
according to the Poonan marriage ceremony. And 
I’ll stand by that marriage ceremony! She’s my 
bride in the sight of all — aye, in the sight of 
Heaven ! ” 

I was thoroughly exasperated. I leaned toward 
her angrily, almost threateningly. 

“ Only you know that I am a white man. To 
these Poonan, remember, I am still the Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan, their Great Marshal King! 
The Poonan will not value your word against 
mine, the word of their King! You can do naught 
to hurt me, Lip-Plak-Tengga; naught to help me ! 
I am King here, I tell you, and I don’t need your 
help! I don’t need anyone’s help! If I want the 
Green, Green God, I’ll take the Green, Green 
God!” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


195 


CHAPTER XX 

MORE ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED 
IN THE AVENUE OF PALMS 

Lip-Plak-Tengga grasped my shoulder (Hyde 
continued). With one hand she covered my 
mouth. She shuddered all over. Wildly, fear- 
fully, this way and that, she looked about her. 

“ Hush! ” she breathed in a low tense whisper. 
“ Speak not so loud — for you do not know of 
what you speak! You take the Green, Green 
God? You take the Green, Green God because 
you are King? Nda^ nda, nda; it is unthinkable! 

“ Because you are King, the Poonan never will 
give up to you the Green, Green God ! To them, 
the god is more sacred than any King! It is 
more sacred to them than the graves of their 
dead and worshiped ancestors, than even the per- 
son of the True Man-Child of Genghis Khan! 
The Green, Green God is a great god to the 
Poonan, O Raj — a god of unwholesome dread ! ” 

I listened in a kind of wonder and, as I listened, 
I began to understand the reason for the awe in 
which the Poonan held the Green, Green God ! 

“ No Poonan will touch the Green, Green 
God,” the Priestess was whispering, “ nor allow 
it to be touched. The god is never supposed to be 
taken from the Stone Dobo. For once the god 


THE STRANGE STORY 


196 

is taken from the Doho, that very moment will all 
our good fortune veer away from us, and mis- 
fortune blow upon us like a pestilential wind ! 

** Ahe! The crops will wither and decay, the 
hoofs of the cattle will rot off, the rain will fall 
w^ithout end, the women will be barren and, by all 
manner of grisly diseases, both women and men 
will die off in the flower of their strength! And 
all the while the earth will rock mightily and 
shake the stones of the Jallan Batoe like bread- 
pellets in the palm of your hand! 

“ And all the while, too, as though battening on 
the terrible misfortunes, the Green, Green God 
will come slowly to life! Not in a day nor even, 
perhaps, in a moon ; but just as it turned to stone 
from the moment it entered the Stone Dobo, just 
so from the moment it is taken out of the Doho, 
slowly, inevitably, will the Green, Green God 
come to life! And once it comes to life, all, all 
will be lost with us — lost forever! 

“ For, while we lie in the rocking caves, tossing 
and sweating and gasping for life from the sickish 
air, the Green, Green God will fly from cave to 
rocking cave ! It will fly screaming at us ! It will 
cling to our golden skins ! And it will peck at our 
back, with its cruel bill, until it exposes our hearts ! 

“ It knows to the precise fraction of an inch 
just where, under the flesh, our hearts are located ! 
It hungers for our hearts! And our hearts it will 
eat! Arre! It will peck the heart of each one of 
us slowly away, until we are cold in death ! ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


197 

The whole legend reminded me of the Kea Par- 
rot of New Zealand which bites through the backs 
of sheep to their kidneys. And the whole legend 
was so grotesque, so incredible, that I almost 
doubted that even the simple-hearted Poonan 
could believe it. But I had no doubts about Lip- 
Plak-Tengga!s believing it. Because of the en- 
fevered pleas the High Priestess had previously 
uttered, I realized that she was telling me not 
what she feared, but only what the Poonan feared I 
“ You do not put any faith in that legend, eh, 
Lip-Plak-Tenggaf I asked tentatively. 

She shook her disheveled locks of hair. 

Nda, nda!*^ she answered emphatically. 
“ The Green, Green God cannot come to life ! 
Only the poor Poonan fear that! But I do not 
fear that. In real life there is no bird like the 
Green, Green God — with claws so sharp and beak 
so cruel, as if it would indeed peck out men’s 
hearts ! And so I do not fear the Green, Green 
God. I know, and all my Priests and Priestesses 
know, that the Green, Green God is but a large 
green stone, wondrously carved I ” 

I smiled. I smiled to myself. It was not the 
first time I had heard of a priesthood that, far 
from sharing the fears of the populace, rather 
profited by keeping alive those foolish fears! 
There were the priests of Egypt who stood behind 
the idols and, for rich offerings, spoke oracular 
things through the mouths of those idols. There 
are to this day the Brahmins of India who mark 


THE STRANGE STORY 


198 

certain animals as sacred in order that they may 
pass comfortable easy livings caring for them. 
And thus with the Priests and Priestesses of the 
Poonan. For it seems invariably to follow that 
they who always are near the gods come to know 
most certainly that the gods are made of clay ! 

And yet, come to think of it, such skepticism 
from Lip-Plak-Tengga was more than strange, 
even though she was the High Priestess of the 
god ! For she had said that there was no bird, in 
real life, just like the Emerald Parrot. To judge 
from that, she never had seen a live parrot ! And 
I remembered thereat that neither had I seen, in 
the Jallan Batoe where she had passed all her 
days, any birds at all of the parrot family! 

Still I knew that there were birds and fowl, 
plentifully enough, in the Field of Stones. That 
morning I had noted, in the tropical growths be- 
tween the stones, musters of peacocks, nides of 
golden and silver pheasants and flights of swal- 
lows, white as those in the great limestone caves 
of Gomanton in British North Borneo. Float- 
ing on the Danau, I had seen in the light from the 
Dobo that evening, flocks of swans black as those 
of Australia, long-necked divers called snake-birds 
because of their appearance, and numberless 
white, white egrets. But in neither jungle nor 
Danau, nor anywhere else within the confines of 
the great crater, had I glimpsed a single parrot! 
No; nor a cockatoo, parrakeet, red lory, or any 
other species of parrot ! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


199 

And yet, withal, parrots are abundant in Borneo 
as, indeed, in all the East Indies; only, in Borneo, 
parrots are most abundant in the hot jungle-choked 
lowlands. They are scarce so far “ in ” as the 
confluence of the Loeang with the Barito. Amid 
the uplands just without the Jallan Batoe they 
are never seen. And even if they could attain 
those mountainous parts, they never could soar, 
like eagles, over the altitudinous walls of the 
crater; nor could they fly into the Jallan Batoe, 
like owls and bats, through that clammy black 
tunnel. 

Never had the Poonan seen a parrot, there- 
fore, save the emerald effigy which was the Green, 
Green God. But that Emerald Parrot, hooked 
of bill, sharp of claw, was of a certainty to them 
a fierce predatory-looking bird ! And so it was no 
wonder to me, now that I understood, that the 
Poonan in their childish simplicity of mind had 
built up legends about that parrot — magnifying its 
predatory qualities, making of it, in the end, a 
spirit of evil, a murderous horrible god ! 

But her voice once again vibrant with the in- 
tensity of her purpose, the High Priestess was 
speaking : 

“ That is why the Poonan killed the first three 
White Men and tortured the last White Man — 
not because they feared those White Men per- 
sonally, but because they feared that those White 
Men would steal the Green, Green God, which 
those White Men surely would have done ! And 


200 


THE STRANGE STORY 


fearing that, the Poonan feared even more greatly 
that once the Green, Green God were taken out of 
the Stone Dobo, it would come to life and peck 
away their hearts ! 

“ But I do not fear the Green, Green God; nor, 
no more do you, if you are like those other White 
Men! You are brave! Why linger then? To- 
night is your Night of Nights ! Not because it is 
your bridal night; nda, ndal To-night is your 
Night of Nights because the elated Poonan never 
will expect you to steal the Green, Green God on 
this, your bridal night ! ” 

She dropped to her knees upon the grass of the 
avenue and clung to my legs. Her voice rose with 
abject pleading. 

“ Say yes ! ” she cried. “ Only yes, Raj! Put 
Belun-Mea Poa-Poa from your mind! Do not 
feel chained to her by that foolish marriage kiss ! 
Fly, fly with me and the Green, Green God! ” 

She was altogether unreasonable. But it was 
no use getting angry at her. That only added to 
her irrationality, I saw; made her deaf to all rea- 
soning. And I must reason with her. I felt, now, 
I must show her conclusively why I did not want 
her help or herself. 

Deliberately I disengaged my legs from her 
clinging arms. As I stood over her then, deliber- 
ately I made answer. 

“ Why should I steal the Green, Green God, 
Lip~Plak~Tenggaf I said. “There is no reason 
at all for me to steal the Green, Green God. I 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


201 


am King here; I am master of the Poonan. I 
fear no one, not even you or your knowledge, 
Lip‘Plak-Tengga; for only you know that I am a 
white man and you alone can never hurl me head- 
long from my position as Raj. 

“ Besides, I love Golden Feather of Flame, and 
Golden Feather of Flame is my bride and Queen. 
With her, I must remain here; for I am happy 
here, Lip-Plak-Tengga — wholly, utterly happy! 
I don’t want the Green, Green God 1 ” 

She looked up at me quickly, in a sort of hurt 
surprise — as though, indeed, my words were as 
a knife-thrust in her side. 

“ But,” she palpitated — “ but you are a White 
Man!” 

I nodded my red head. 

“ Assuredly, I am a white man,” I assented. 
“ I am a white man, just like all those other white 
men. Footsore and ragged, a white man as you 
say, I entered the Jallan Batoe to steal the Green, 
Green God. But I found here something that 
is dearer to me than any Green, Green God. I 
found Belun-Mea Poa-Poa! I found paradise on 
earth ! 

“You can see for yourself, Lip-Plak-Tengga. 
For me to steal the Green, Green God now would 
be folly, madness, sheer suicide! The Poonan 
would rise up, as you say, and whelm me over. 
I would lose my paradise, I would lose Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa! It would mean my disgrace, my down- 
fall and my death! ” 


202 


THE STRANGE STORY 


She did not answer, only bowed her head. 

Nda, nda! ” I said with a certain revulsion at 
the dreadful debacle I myself had pictured. “ I 
do not want the Green, Green God ! ” 

And I turned on my heel then, and strode away 
from her. I strode up that shadowy Avenue of 
Palms. 

But, not six feet on, I looked back. She was 
standing then, very still, looking after me. And 
there was in her eyes a terrible look. It was the 
same look that had flashed, once before in the 
Doha, from her eyes into mine. It was a look of 
virulent hate, a look of deadliest rancor — it was 
the look of a woman scorned! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


203 


CHAPTER XXI 

WHEREIN HYDE WAITS IN THE ELE- 
PHANT CAVE, AND THERE COMES 
TO HIM A WOMAN 

Old Mohong and the Gunner, pacing as a guard 
of honor before the Elephant Stone (Hyde pur- 
.sued), drew together as I approached. They 
were garbed only in jawats now, having stripped 
themselves of their sacred pehang skins. I did 
not ask the reason of that. They were kowtowing 
before me ; but I ignored that, also. One idea pos- 
sessed my mind. 

** Adjiesr* I said sharply. “Tell me. What 
would happen if the Green, Green God should be 
taken from the Dobof^* 

Like spent bows, the Chieftains bobbed erect. 
They shivered. Actually, in all that heat, they 
shivered. The Gunner moistened his lips. 

“You are playing on our fears, Raj — it would 
be too terrible ! All kinds of misfortunes would 
befall us ! ” 

“ It would come to life ! ” old Mohong cried 
out, his voice quavering with age and nameless 
dread. “ It would come to life, it would come to 
life!’’ 

“Enough!” I said brusquely. And I walked 


204 THE STRANGE STORY 

on up the nine stone stairs into the Elephant 
Cave. 

Here, in the huge Elephant Cave, I found that 
the two Adjies had replenished the torches in the 
many sockets along the walls. The immense cave 
was almost as light as day, now, with a great 
ring of dancing flames. I advanced under those 
flames toward the rush-plaited couch. And here, 
on the couch, I found the reason why the two 
Chieftains had stripped themselves of their 
leopard skins. They had laid those sacred skins 
over my own pehang skin on that rush-plaited 
couch ! 

From that, now, I dimly began to realize that 
my own pehang skin had been laid there the night 
prior both as a covering for me during the night 
and as a garb for me during the day. That seemed 
to be the primitive fashion of the Poonan even in 
regard to their King. But so much was I the 
white man and especially the Englishman — ever 
scornful of others’ customs of dress — that, even 
though I realized fully now that the first pehang 
skin was supposed to be worn by me, I resolved 
not to wear it, but to stick to my own familiar 
trousers and hickory shirt, mud-mottled and un- 
kempt though they were. 

And yet that could have little to do, I knew, 
with this laying of more skins upon my couch. 
Why, I asked myself, should the two Chieftains 
rob themselves of their skins in order to lay those 
skins upon my couch? It must be — aye, it was a 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


205 


manifestation of respect and of reverence ! They 
had robbed themselves of their skins, I saw, and 
had laid those sacred skins upon my couch, be- 
cause that rush-plaited couch was to be my bridal 
bed! 

Now that touch of nature was so elemental, so 
homely and yet so poignant with reverence that 
it tugged at my heartstrings, shook me to the 
wells of my being. I sat down upon the couch. 
And I thought no longer of Lip-Plak-Tengga, 
her importunities, her promises and her scorn. 
I thought only of her whom I had married with a 
kiss, whom I then was awaiting — Belun-Mea Poa- 
PoUy the beautiful and good! 

“ Even now,” I said to myself, “ in some cave 
in the monster rocks, probably in one of those 
sacristies of the Dobo, the old women of the 
Poonan are bathing and anointing Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa with holy oils, robing her in the silks 
of her mothers and preparing her, according to 
custom, for this sacred night. And for this sacred 
night, I too must prepare myself. I must make 
myself pure in thought, humble in spirit. I must 
be worthy the love of Golden Feather of Flame ! ” 

Made nervous by waiting, excited by my 
thoughts, I got afoot from the couch and began 
pacing up and down the whole length of the cave, 
around and around the four torch-lighted stone 
walls. And I felt, then, so unworthy and so base 
as I thought of her who, though born of an un- 
enlightened pagan people, was yet as pure and 


2o6 the strange story 

sweetly unconscious of evil as the most innocent 
girl back home, that I wished — dearly wished — 
that I could pray! 

But I never have been a praying man. Never 
have I prayed or thought of such things, except- 
ing when fever slapped us down in the jungles, or 
a man was buried at sea. And now no word of 
prayer came to me, as I paced back and forth, but 
a few words of that short and simple service for 
burial at sea. 

“ That won’t do, that won’t do at all,” I told 
myself. “ But I must pray. Golden Feather of 
Flame will be here soon, very soon. I must 
pray 1 ” 

Back and forth, back and forth under the 
torches that lighted my cave I paced, the while 
I cudgeled my brains in a great effort to remember 
something of those prayers I had neglected in 
my youth. Back and forth, back and forth, what 
time I grew more and more nervous with waiting, 
more and more excited by my thoughts. Back 
and forth, back and forth, for ten minutes, for 
twenty, for a full half hour. And then, suddenly, 
as I neared again that rush-plaited couch I halted 
dead in my nervous pacing. I hearkened and, as 
I hearkened, I heard once again the sound. It 
was the sound of light footsteps — my beautiful 
bride, I thought! 

There entered the low doorway of my cave- 
chamber then, in the trice that my heart stopped 
beating, a woman alone. But she was not my 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


207 

beautiful bride. She was the High Priestess, Lip- 
Plak-Tengga! 

I started back. I was startled, indeed, by this 
second unexpected appearance of the dark-eyed 
woman; I was the more startled by the fact that 
again she was alone, unattended by her retinue 
of Priests and Priestesses; but what startled me, 
most and above all, was a certain change in her 
aspect. 

No longer was she garbed in that torn but color- 
ful orchid gown. She was garbed now in a plain 
gown of rank pandanus. And save that that gown 
covered her from throat to ankles, it was just like 
the cogon skirt Golden Feather of Flame had 
worn, in that it suggested the poor drab garb of 
one humiliated and abashed. It was a slave’s 
garb! I knew that. I knew that because she 
carried in her arms against her agitated breasts, 
just like a slave, a lehet or bound, covered basket 
of interwoven rattan. 

Her black glossy hair knotted plainly behind 
her head by a fillet of pandanus, her face flaming 
as with a sense of shame, she stepped up to me, 
and began bowing low, hurriedly, nine times. 
Nervous and excited as I was, I stepped forward 
impulsively ere she finished bowing. 

“Be done, be done, Lip-Plak-Tengga** I said 
quickly, “ and tell me what is your business with 
me again this night. Why do you carry that 
bound, covered basket? Why do you come to me 
for the second time alone? ” 


208 THE STRANGE STORY 

She left off bowing and lifted her dark slant 
eyes to me. 

“ I come from Golden Feather of Flame,” she 
said. “ On this, her marriage night, I come on a 
slave’s errand — ^ ” 

“What!” I interrupted. “Golden Feather 
of Flame? You come from Golden Feather of 
Flame? ” 

She nodded, her face paling as in the draw of 
some violent emotion. ^ 

“ Listen, O Raj! ” she exclaimed. “ Once I 
was the High Priestess of the Poonan, and I had 
many maidens to wait on me and many young 
men to do my bidding. The people reverenced 
me, the Priests and Priestesses reverenced me, 
and I moved no hand to serve anyone 1 
But to-night, O Man-Child, you see Lip-Plak- 
Tengga^ and while she is still High Priestess, she 
is also a slave! Ahe !** — and her voice wailed 
through the cave — a slave I am, a slave and 
handmaid of your Orlok Radenajo, Golden 
Feather of Flame! For I bring to you, O Man- 
Child, a gift from your beautiful bride ! ” 

So that was it ! So that was why she had flushed 
and paled at having to come to me! She was 
assailed by outraged pride. She who had tried to 
be my Orlok Radenajo^ was compelled to per- 
form, now, the duties of a handmaid to the woman 
I had selected as my Queen! Nor did I question 
the proprieties of that. If Golden Feather of 
Flame ordered it so, I thought, it must be all 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 209 

right. And really I was only interested in that she 
came from my bride, that she came bearing a 
gift from my bride ! 

“ What do you bring from Golden Feather of 
Flame?” I asked. “What can she be sending 
me ? She should be here herself soon.” And there 
was a kind of anxious question in my last words. 

But she ignored that. She returned: 

“ The gift is in this basket. I do not know 
what that gift is. I am only the slave who brings 
it. For li-liat! ” she added, her voice rising again. 
“Look! Belun-Mea Poa-Poa no longer trusts 
me — I who am nearest her in rank 1 She has put 
her gift not into my hands. She has put her gift 
into this basket. And she has fastened down the 
rattan cover of the basket and bound the whole 
basket round and round with rattan ropes 1 ” 

She held the lehet out to me. “ Take it,” she 
said; then significantly, almost maliciously, added: 
“ It must be some valuable thing, surely I ” 

Now, there was in those last words something 
which halted me, even as I made eagerly to out- 
reach for that basket. I looked at her sharply, 
suspiciously. 

“ A valuable thing, is it? ” I repeated in a tone 
somewhat similar to the one she had used. “ Well 
then, you might care to stay and see that valuable 
thing, eh, Lip-Plak-Tenggaf Nda, nda! — as 
she made, in quite a flurry, to withdraw. “ You 
stay right here I ” 


210 


THE STRANGE STORY 

I took the basket from her hands. My eyes 
never left her eyes. 

“ Until I open this basket and see what is in- 
side of it, Lip-Plak-Tengga,'' I insisted, a metallic 
rasp creeping into my voice, “ you stay right 
here ! ” 

I laid the basket upon the floor then, and 
stooped over it. My hands shaking despite all 
my efforts for self-control, I tore away the fibers 
of rattan which bound that basket about and about 
like ropes. The cover was held fast by several 
threads of rattan, plaited, and twisted around a 
bilian pin, stout as a bolt. I jerked out that pin. 
Then, my breath held in a sort of dread of what 
I might see, I threw up the cover. 

And then — then I sunk down beside that basket 
upon my knees I 

Within, under the cover, wrapped about some 
larger object, was that little skirt of rank cogon 
grass which my beloved had worn, that very even- 
ing, when she had offered herself as a sacrifice 
for the Sin of the Poonan ! 

Of two things, I was sure then : The larger ob- 
ject wrapped inside that grass skirt was the gift; 
and that gift really was from my bride. For that 
simple little grass skirt whispered of Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa as intimately as the delicate handwriting 
on an envelope whispers of some more civilized, 
though never more lovely lady. 

I looked up at the High Priestess. And I found 
that she was watching me closely in my love- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 21 1 

drunken elation, watching me with eyes that 
seemed burning with envy ! 

Now, never was I the man to trifle with the 
hearts of women. And so it was that I did not 
want this woman, now, to look on while I un- 
wrapped that skirt and, in every eager breath and 
tremulous flush of face, showed my intense love 
for the other woman. I wanted to spare her what 
pain I could. Wherefore, although I was all 
a-flush and quick-breathed to see what was the 
gift within that skirt, I left off and stood up now 
to dismiss her. 

“You may go now, Lip-Plak-Tengga*^ I said. 
“ With my own eyes I have seen that the gift 
is truly from Belun-Mea Poa-Poa. So you may 
go now, you may go! ” 

Flaming and paling, bowing deeply the while, 
she stepped slowly back toward the low doorway. 
And looking at her then, I felt truly sorry for 
her. Indeed I felt it almost as a fault of mine 
that she should love me, as she had said she did, 
and so love me in vain. Born of my love-exalted 
mood, then, a sudden inspiration flashed into my 
mind. I would do what I could to remedy that 
fault of mine. 

Lip-Plak-Tengga^ I added gently, “forgive 
me for having doubted you. Let bygones be by- 
gones, and let us hereafter be good friends. We 
are both rulers of the Poonan, you as High 
Priestess and I as King. My allegiance may be 
worth something to you. And I, because I respect 


212 


THE STRANGE STORY 


your intellect and that secret knowledge you have 
of who I really am, will ever be glad to listen to 
your advice. Shall we not be friends? ” 

She halted sharply in her bowing. She looked 
at me, her face burning as red as though I had 
suggested something shameful. And then up to 
her full height she drew herself, so that she was as 
a tower of ivory, a tower of pride and arrogance. 

“ To-night in the Stone Dobo/^ she said, a cold 
ring in her voice, “ you chose between Belun-Mea 
Poa-Poa and me. Belun-Mea Poa-Poa you raised 
from the ground and put upon the Nine-Times- 
Nine Throne beside you. You kissed her and, by 
so doing, made her your Radenajo and bride. 
You could have done all that for me. I had of- 
fered, shamelessly offered, myself to you. But 
me you cast down, thrust aside, left to lie for- 
gotten. You could have done no worse had you 
severed my head from my shoulders with the 
Mandau of Genghis Khan! 

“ And now you offer me a cold friendship, a 
venal friendship! You fear the Poonan and you 
want my help, now, in order to control them! 
To-night in the Avenue of Palms I taught you a 
lesson. I showed you then how completely I have 
seen through your fraud. You fear now that the 
Poonan may see through your fraud, even as I 
have. You want me to keep quiet, to let the 
Poonan discover that fraud for themselves if they 
can, and even to aid you if they do discover that 
fraud I 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


213 

“Ah, you think that I still love you! Yes, I 
did love you once. But when you refused to do 
what I begged of you in the Avenue of Palms this 
night, I lost all love for you. You are a White 
Man, but you no longer are a Brave White Man 1 
Love has sapped your heart, robbed you of all 
daring! And Lip-Plak-Tengga will never, never 
love a coward! 

“ I hate you now ! I hate you now because 
you want my friendship. That is a despicable 
insult to me ! To me who loved you, you offer — 
friendship, a venal friendship! And I — I give 
you my hate, my everlasting hate; hate that shall 
bring about, soon or later, your disgrace, your 
downfall and your death! ” 

She broke off. She laughed that odd irritating 
laugh of hers. 

“ But until then, O Toewan Raj, O Man-Child 
of Genghis Khan,” she mocked, “ I shall bow to 
you — bow to you the nine times ! ” And she bowed 
to the flooring, once, twice, three times, four 

But I could stand it no longer. She was only 
mocking me, only ironically insulting me, with 
each bow. I stepped toward her. 

“ You bow to me because you are afraid of 
me ! ” I exploded, my voice choking with fury. 
“ I am a white man, but Fm King here, and you 
are afraid of me. I am King here, I tell you, and 
you can do nothing against me or mine ! All you 
can do is to spit out your venom in words, you cat ! 


214 the strange story 

But you’ll bow to me and continue to bow, while 
I so order; for you are afraid of me — afraid! ” 

She stood to her full height once more before 
me — a quivering mast that flaunted the red pen- 
non of defiance. 

“ Afraid of you 1 ” she cried, her voice harsh 
and grating. “ Afraid of you 1 ” She leaned 
toward me. Her voice dropped to a vibrant 
whisper. “Ah, you do not know! But there is 
Some One who does my command — Some One 
v/hom the Poonan fear as a Dread Thing — Some 
One whom I alone, as High Priestess, could loose 
upon you at any hour with a single word! And 
I fear you ? Nda, nda; never ! It is you, you who 
should fear ” 

She broke off and, almost unconsciously it 
seemed, she turned her head slowly, covertly, and 
looked over one shoulder through the low door- 
way behind her. 

My eyes followed the direction her eyes had 
indicated. My muscles tensed as though for a 
struggle, my heart dead with the chill of some 
unaccountable dread, I gazed through that low 
doorway. Through that doorway the light from 
my cave danced in an oblong pane of brightness 
upon the floor and the farther wall of that horse- 
shoe-shaped corridor; beyond that pane of bright- 
ness, on either side, the corridor circled away 
toward the invisible entrances; but save for that 
pane of brightness, that corridor was black — noth- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


215 

ing but blackness. I could see no one. Certainly, 
in that blackness, I saw naught to fear. 

And yet her whisper, her unconscious covert 
look behind her, had called up a vision before me. 
That vision, truly, was only in my brains; but 
still I saw it as distinctly as though it were a 
reality immediately before my eyes. For I saw, 
once again, that huge shape I had glimpsed in 
the Doho — ^that Monster Man hiding behind the 
old, old rug, ruffling that rug with ungainly lurch- 
ings, peering through that rug at me! And I 
shuddered. 

A low irritating laugh sounded in my ears. 
For the second time that evening, I caught in 
Lip‘Plak-Tengga! 5 wickedly slant eyes that tri- 
umphant calamitous look. And then, with a deep 
mocking bow, a jingle from her gold anklets, she 
was gone — gone through the low doorway into 
the blackness of the corridor! 


2i6 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XXII 

HOW TERROR ENTERED THE ELE- 
PHANT CAVE 

With a hand that shook a little (said Hyde), 
I took down from a socket in the nearest wall one 
of the many torches and with it held high above 
my head, stepped out through the low doorway to 
make sure that Lip-Plak-Tengga really had gone, 
and to make sure, above all, that she had left no 
one behind her. 

I groped around the left-hand bend of the cor- 
ridor, my torch arousing leaping shadows in the 
blackness, until I could make out the arched en- 
trance gaping open into the pale light of the starry 
night. Then I came back, passed by the low 
lighted doorway of my cave, and circled round 
the other bend of the corridor until I stepped out 
upon the head of the nine stairs in the right-hand 
entrance. 

Below me, old Mohong was pacing slowly. I 
called out to him. 

Adjie/* I called, “which way did Lip-Plak- 
Tengga go?” 

He waved one arm, lean with age, in the direc- 
tion of the Stone Doho far down the avenue. 

“ And there was no one with her? ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


217 

N da, nda, RajJ^ He shook his white head. 
“ No one.’’ 

Baik/^ I said, quite relieved. “ It is good.” 

He made to turn away. 

Adjie” I said, “you and the other Chief 
watch closely. If you see anyone or anything 
skulking about here, report to — — ” I broke off. 
I asked: “ What is the hour? ” 

“ It is within a stride of the noon of night,” he 
answered. 

“ Well, watch closely until then,” I said. 
“ When the noon of night comes, report to me 
what you have seen. If you have seen anything 
unusual, report to me what you have seen that is 
unusual. If you have seen nothing out of the 
ordinary, report to me that you have seen noth- 
ing. But I must know either way. 

“ I want no one to enter here to-night. Save 
Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, let no one enter here to- 
night. Understand? And do you and the other 
Chieftain keep pacing close before the foot of 
either stairs. You tell the other Chief what I 
have said. I must have you both within hearing, if 
I call. And I may call. There is a reason.” 

He bowed. 

“ What can be done, will be done, O Raj/^ he 
returned. “ And I will report to you at the noon 
of the night.” 

My fears somewhat subdued now, I thought 
only to look down that Avenue of Palms to see if 
I could glimpse my beautiful Golden Feather of 


2i8 the strange story 

Flame coming toward me. But I could not see 
far. The light from the stars was so feeble, the 
avenue so shadowed by the stones and palms, that 
I could only see for a distance of some hundred 
feet. And within that distance, with the exception 
of the Gunner and old Mohong, no living creature 
stirred. 

But thought of my bride had warmed my heart, 
now, with a certain delicious curiosity. I would 
determine, ere she came, just what was the na- 
ture of her gift to me on this Night of Nights. 
The torch in my hand, I made quickly back into 
my cave and replaced that torch in its socket in 
the wall. Then, with eager hands, I lifted that 
rattan-woven basket from the floor and set it upon 
the couch. 

I sat down upon the couch beside it. I sat 
down beside it in such a manner that it was be- 
tween me and the doorway; for I wanted to keep 
one eye on that doorway, the while I examined 
the gift, in order that I should be aware the mo- 
ment my bride entered. And momentarily, now, 
I expected her to enter. 

I looked into the basket then. To see what was 
that gift within the little grass skirt, I lifted that 
skirt and the gift it enfolded from the basket. 
And then — then I dropped skirt and enwrapped 
gift and all back into the basket! For, of a sud- 
den into my ears had crept once again the sound 
of light footsteps! 

“ That’s the tread of her lovely little feet! ” I 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


219 

thought. And I listened. Like soft words of 
love, the sound of her footsteps caressed my ears, 
crept through my body, stole into my heart of 
hearts. I leaped afoot. I waited, trembling. 

She came slowly into the cave, her fair form 
wrapped in a robe as regally purple as the robe 
of a Roman empress, her golden hair tied with 
charming simplicity away from her neck and rip- 
pling down her back, her hands clasped together 
before her, and her silky brushes of lashes shading 
modestly her greenish downcast eyes. 

Quite suddenly, with a bewitching rose blush- 
ing under the damask of either cheek, she looked 
up at me and smiled shyly. Then, quickly, she 
caught sight of the basket opened upon the couch. 
Her eyes widened; she fluttered toward me; and 
she plucked with one slim hand at my sleeve. 
With the other, she pointed at the basket. 

“ What is that? What is that in the basket? ” 
she asked. “ What is that wrapped up in my 
grass skirt?” 

I was taken aback by her question. 

“ Of all women. Golden Feather of Flame,” I 
said, “ you should know what is hidden in that 
skirt. For it is the gift you sent me on this, our 
bridal night.” 

A bewildered expression swam across her green- 
ish eyes. 

“I?” she asked; then hurriedly: “But I — I 
sent you no gift, O Raj! From me there was no 
wedding gift, but my own poor self I ” 


220 


THE STRANGE STORY 

I could not speak. I could hardly think. I 
stood there, for a full minute, an intolerable 
minute, looking from her to the basket and back 
again in darting glances of perplexity. When I 
spoke, my voice sounded so mechanical I barely 
recognized it as my own. 

“But Lip-Plak-Tengga! I said. “While I 
waited for you to-night, Lip-Plak-T engga came to 

me — came here to me with a gift from you ” 

NdUj nda!^^ cried Golden Feather of Flame, 
her face white as ivory. Lip-Plak-T engga 

brought no gift from me. I sent no marriage 
gift at all. And had I sent you any marriage gift 
more than my own unworthy self, Lip-Plak- 
T engga should have been the last woman to have 
brought It ! She does not serve me in such slavish 
ways. She is High Priestess and nearest me in 
rank. And she hates me ! She always has hated 
me. Because I ever have been the one woman 
above her, always has she hated me. O Man- 
Child, she came to you to-night for no good pur- 
pose ! She hates both me and mine ! ” 

As plainly as I saw the torches sputtering along 
the walls, just that plainly did I see, now, that 
there was some ugly plot afoot. Surely enough, 
Ltp-Plak-T engga had brought that gift for no 
good purpose! There was no doubt about that. 
She hated Golden Feather of Flame; she hated 
me. That gift — whatever it was — was a gift of 
hate 1 

I leaped upon the couch. I would see what was 


221 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 

that gift ! I picked up from the basket that skirt 
and the object it contained. I did not hear the 
sound of dragging footsteps in the corridor. I 
was too overwrought. My heart thumping as 
with a hemorrhage, my breath coming in gasps, 
my hands trembling as though from palsy, I tore 
away the skirt of grass from about that object. 

And thereat I no longer breathed; the grass 
skirt fell from the nerveless fingers of my right 
hand to the floor; I was like one affrighted. 

I was affrighted ! For I held in my left hand 
that which I had heard so much about, that which 
I had come into the Jallan Batoe expressly to find, 
that which I had hoped, once, to take back with 
me to the outer world — a single emerald, one foot 
long and carved just like a parrot — the Green, 
Green God! 

I could not move. I looked at that Emerald 
Parrot, shimmering green in the torchlight, and 
I could not move. Fear was upon me. Fear for 
Golden Feather of Flame. Fear for myself. 
Fear of the Poonan, and of what they might do 
once they found the god gone from the Dobo! 

Slow and insidious as a cobra, that fear crawled 
through my brains, wrapped tight about my 
brains, wrapped tighter, tighter 

A scream shattered that vise-grip of terror. But 
that scream came not from Belun-Mea Poa-Poa! 
That scream came from another. It was a man’s 
scream — b, scream quavering with age, with dis- 
may, with awful horror! 


222 


THE STRANGE STORY 


The Emerald Parrot fell from my hand upon 
the couch. I swung round. There in the low 
doorway, his rheumy eyes almost popping from 
their sockets, his parchment skin drawn into his 
toothless cheeks as though his head were a China- 
man’s head, smoke-cured by the Dyaks, his whole 
aged frame shaking, as in ague, with terrible 
fright, was MoJiong W ook^ the old Adjie! 

It was all my own fault; I had told him to re- 
port to me, and he had come to report to me. It 
was midnight — the noon of the night. He had 
entered the Elephant Cave to make his report to 
me and entering thus, with sound of dragging 
footsteps I could not hear because of the thump- 
ing of my own heart, the gasping of my own 
breath, he had seen the Green, Green God! 

He knew, now, that the Green, Green God 
was gone from the Dobo. And he would tell all 
the Poonan that the Green, Green God was gone 
from the Dobo! For now he was screaming, 
screaming with horror: 

“You have stolen the god from the Dobo! 
And it will come to life, it will come to life 1 ” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


223 


CHAPTER XXIII 

TELLS IN WHAT WISE HYDE MADE 
USE OF THE RATTAN CORDS ABOUT 
THE BASKET 

I sprung toward him (Hyde went on). But 
someone was before me. And that someone was 
Golden Feather of Flame ! None other than Gol- 
den Feather of Flame ! 

White as ivory she was, but controlled. She 
had not screamed. Even when, with such startling 
suddenness, she had seen the Green, Green God 
upraised in my hand, she had not screamed. She 
loved me greatly, so she did. For it was her 
great love for me which had enabled her to con- 
quer all her fears of the Green, Green God. And 
it was love for me, love and fear for me, which 
caused her to act now. 

She was no brown girl of the beaches! She 
was a thousand times nobler and braver than ever 
I could hope to be. I had told Lip-Plak~Tengga 
that I would stand by Golden Feather of Flame ; 
but it was not I — it was Golden Feather of Flame 
who was standing by me I She had married me, 
according to the Poonan marriage ceremony, with 
a kiss of love; and she was standing by that mar- 
riage ceremony more religiously and far more 


THE STRANGE STORY 


224 

courageously than most women, brown or white, 
would have done ! 

I had in my possession a Dread Thing. It mat- 
tered not how I had come into possession of that 
Dread Thing. It only mattered now that, because 
of that Dread Thing, I faced not only complete 
loss of rank and happiness, but torture, perdition, 
utter misery of body and soul! She knew what 
I faced; yet she was not turning from me; she 
was facing all that with me! For even at that 
moment, she was helping me, protecting me. She 
was trying, at that very moment, to still old Mo- 
hong* s outcries ! 

And had she been the Green, Green God come 
to life, in truth, her efforts to still old Mohong 
could not have been more in the nature of a fren- 
zied fluttering attack. She tried to cover his 
mouth with her hand, with an impromptu gag 
formed hurriedly from the looseness of her silken 
robe. But he would not be muffled. So she 
scratched at his face, beat at his face, frantically 
pulled at his white hair. 

To me, she cried distractedly: 

Raj, Raj! Come ! Help me, help me, or we 
are lost! ” 

But I was upon him then. I had been leaping 
toward him, and in that leap, swiftly, with whelm- 
ing admiration, I had witnessed her frantic actions, 
formed that judgment of her splendid character. 
However long it takes to tell it here, it all took 
place in a mere fraction of time, a bare eye- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


225 


flutter — to be precise, a double leap of my body 
over a ten-foot space. And then I was upon him. 

I grasped him fiercely by his withered neck. He 
was but a shriveled-up old man, half paralyzed 
with fright; I was a giant above him, virile, power- 
ful. I did not realize my strength. I grasped 
him by his withered neck so fiercely that his face 
turned blue and his screams died suddenly with a 
kind of hollow rattle. When I released my hand 
— ^which I did quickly — he slapped down on the 
floor upon his face. 

More gently then, I turned him over. His 
wrinkled lids were closed now, and only his lips 
were blue. I had choked his screams in his throat, 
but it was with fright that he had fainted so dead 
away. For all I knew, he may have thought, in 
the blindness of that fright, that it was not Golden 
Feather of Flame or I, but the Green, Green God 
come to life, who was attacking him ! 

But I was given no time to conjecture. Golden 
Feather of Flame, having rushed to the couch, 
now came as hastily back to my side. 

“ Quick ! ” she whispered. “ Here are those 
rattan ropes from about that basket. Here, 
here ! ” 

I took them from her brave little hands. She 
seemed to know just what to do; for without 
pause, she breathed hurriedly: 

“ Bind him up ! Gag and bind him, Raj! 
Quick, or we are lost! If he wakes now, he will 
scream his discovery to all the Poonan 1 ” 


226 THE STRANGE STORY 

Some minutes later, I stood up. Old Mohong, 
cruelly assaulted and abused, lay upon his back 
on the floor. He had come to consciousness dur- 
ing the while I had been binding him; his rheumy 
old eyes were open now; but he could neither speak 
nor move. 

His toothless mouth was gagged with a stout 
gag made from a tatter of cloth, torn from my 
hickory shirt and wound about that hilian pin 
from the basket, the whole held immovably in his 
mouth by a ribbon of rattan tied behind his white 
head. His hands were bound together behind his 
back with ribbons of rattan, thin and pliable as 
twine but stronger. His feet were tied together 
at the ankles with rattans thick as cords. And 
thick cords of rattan wound about his whole body, 
trussing him so securely and tightly that he could 
twitch not so much as a muscle. 

All that had been done in compliance to Belun- 
Mea Poa-Poa*s orders. She had taken the domi- 
nant position, now. She was cooler than I in that 
black time of despair, more masterful. She was 
one woman in ten thousand. 

Her purple robe clinging and fluttering about 
her luxuriant form, she came toward me, as I 
stood up, bearing in her right hand a torch she 
had taken down from one of the sockets in the 
walls. 

Kehd, Raj,** she said. “ Come. Let us carry 
the old Adjie to a place where he will not be seen. 
He cannot work himself free now, or cry out. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


227 

Let us carry him out into the blackness of the 
corridor.” 

Baik/* I assented. “ It is good.” And I 
bent down, picked up the bound and aged Chief- 
tain, and like so much luggage, slung him under 
one arm. Then, with Golden Feather of Flame 
going before me with the torch to light the way, 
I stooped under the low doorway and entering 
the horseshoe-shaped corridor, turned after her 
toward the left-hand entrance. 

Where the horseshoe-shaped corridor took a 
sharp bend away from the low doorway of my 
cave toward the left-hand entrance, we paused. 
Here, at this bend, one could see the oblong pane 
of brightness from the low doorway of my cave on 
the one hand, and on the other the left-hand en- 
trance gaping open into the darkening night. But 
twenty feet or more separated the bend from 
either of those brighter points, and so that bend 
was thickly black, save when lighted by a torch, 
as it was now. 

Here, upon the stone flooring, I deposited the 
old Adjie^ pushing him against the wall as if he 
were a roll of matting. 

“ Be quick,” urged Golden Feather of Flame. 
“ We will leave him here. We must not wait. 
There is not much time. And That Which is 
upon the couch has given us much to do this 
night ! ” 

She did not mention the Green, Green God by 
name. She only spoke of the Green, Green God, 


228 


THE STRANGE STORY 


now, in words that were remote and most cau- 
tious, and in a voice that was cold as with the 
chill of despair. 

And it was well that she spoke thus remotely and 
cautiously of the Green, Green God. For, on the 
sudden, as I straightened myself after depositing 
old Mohong upon the floor, I saw over her shoul- 
der, standing in the corridor some ten feet within 
the gaping left-hand entrance, the second Adjte — 
he whom I called the Gunner ! 

Whether he had seen the accursed god, shim- 
mering a deep green upon the couch in the cham- 
ber beyond, I did not know. But I did know that 
here, again, it was all my fault that he had entered. 
He had entered the corridor to find out, quite 
naturally, why old Mohong did not return to his 
guard duty; I had given instructions that I might 
call both him and old Mohong; and excited by 
those instructions, he had thought quite probably, 
when old Mohong did not come out, that there 
might be some need for him, also, in my cave. 

It was all my own fault; for by merely going 
to the left-hand entrance, I could have forestalled 
him. I could have kept him outside by simply 
telling him that old Mohong was on guard in the 
corridor and that he was supposed to perform 
the duties of both of them before the Elephant 
Stone. 

But I had thought only to get rid of old Mo- 
hong, And he had seen me getting rid of old 
Mohong! His brow was knotted with bewilder- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


229 

merit and incredulity now, his eyes beneath tight- 
ened into two thin gleaming lines of suspicion! 
For even at that moment, in the light from my 
bride’s torch, he could see old Mohong trussed up 
like a ham at my feet I 

I could not let him get away with the knowledge 
that we had made a prisoner of old Mohong. I 
feared he possessed, also, that more terrible 
knowledge — that the Green, Green God was in 
my cave 1 I would have to serve him as I had 
served old Mohong — make a prisoner of him, 
and thereby keep his knowledge, whatever it was, 
secure from the ears of the Poonan ! 

Swiftly I brushed past Golden Feather of 
Flame. She gave a little cry of fright, at my 
startling action, but I did not halt. I could not 
halt. All in a moment, I was desperate to the 
edge of madness. I leaped at the Gunner. I 
leaped at the Gunner like a charging boar. 

But even as I leaped at him, he saw in a flash 
my design. His Chinese eyes went wide with 
sudden fear of me. 

N da, nda, nda! ” he shouted shrilly. And in 
panicky haste, he swung about and bounded for 
the entrance. 


230 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XXIV 

HOW HYDE ANSWERED A GRAVE 
QUESTION 

Squat and heavily muscled as a pugilist, the 
Gunner was (Hyde swept on) ; but he was afraid 
of me. He had seen how I had served old Mo- 
hong; he was afraid I might do the same to him; 
and he may have had some greater cause to fear 
me! But, anyway, it was only fear that caused 
him to reach that left-hand entrance as quickly 
as he did. That entrance had been ten paces 
beyond him; but he reached that entrance in a 
trice, in three huge bounds! 

And yet, despite his swiftness, I was right be- 
hind him. I was desperate to stop him. I 
stretched out a hand and — I was that close to him 
then — grasped him by a draggling end of his 
jawat. I caught him by that jawat-tnd. where it 
floated back behind him; but he was throwing 
himself bodily through the entrance, at that mo- 
ment, and that end snapped off in my hand. 

The end of his jawat in my hand, the impetus 
of my desperate effort hurling me on, I slapped 
with a tremendous force up against one stone wall 
of the entrance, while he fell headlong through 
that entrance and down the nine stone stairs. 

I clung to that wall. My head seemed burst 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


231 

like a balloon, my whole body was sick and 
shaken; but quickly, despite the whirling of my 
head, I made to follow him. For, at the foot 
of the stairs, he had staggered just then to his 
feet, shot a fearful look up at me, and was off, 
reeling and lurching, down the avenue. 

But a hand upon my arm stopped me. It was 
Golden Feather of Flame who had sped up be- 
hind me. She held me back. 

“ Do not go, do not go ! ” she cried as though 
frightened at my rashness. “ It is too late. You 
cannot catch him. He knows the Jallan Batoe 
too well.” 

She was right. Already was the Gunner lost 
among the shadows of the palms and stones. I 
never could overtake him now. 

“But what will we do?” I asked, quite at a 
loss. “ He knows about old Mohong, He may 
know about the God. I wanted to make him a 
prisoner like Mohong — ^I mean, the old AdpeJ^ 

“ Ssh ! ” she cautioned me. Then as she nodded 
her golden head, she whispered: “Yes; I know 
what you wanted to do. But you should not have 
leaped at him, as you did. That scared him. 
Even had he known about That Which is in the 
cave, we might have coaxed him into the cave and 
then leaped upon him and served him as we did 
the old Adjie. But you scared him away by leap- 
ing so.” 

I hung my head with a sense of shame. Surely 
enough, I saw now that I had blundered, had 


THE STRANGE STORY 


232 

ruined the whole thing. But with a sudden 
thought, I brightened. 

“He never saw the god!” I said. “He did 
not cry out. And he would have cried out had he 
seen it. He could have seen it from within that 
entrance. But he never saw the god! His very 
face was not so expressive of fright and horror, 
as of bewilderment and dismay! ” 

He had just come inside the left-hand entrance 
when I glimpsed him. I did not give him time to 
see the god. He only saw old Mohong trussed up 
like a ham. He never saw the god! ” 

“ The Great Deewa grant that it is as you 
say ! ” she said fervently. “ But if he has seen 
That Which is upon the couch ” — and her voice 
grew cold as steel again, icy — “ if he has seen It, 
we will be made aware of that very soon! The 
Poonan will make us aware of that. All the 
Poonan will come here and they will kill us both, 
without respect for our rank, without thought of 
mercy — with only that horrible brutality which is 
born of fear ! ” 

She put a hand beseechingly upon my sleeve. 

“ Let us take It back, Raj! ” she entreated. 
“ Let us put That Which is upon the couch into 
the basket and together take It back to-night to 
the Stone Doho!*^ 

I looked at her as she stood there in the en- 
trance, the torch held, with one golden classic arm, 
high above her head, its sputtering flame throwing 
a red glow over the raw gold of her hair; I looked 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


233 

into her greenish Egyptian eyes begging up into 
mine with love and great fear; and I nodded. 

I was no fool. I was no fool like the kind you 
read about in stories. I had come into the Jallan 
Batoe for the Green, Green God; but now I did 
not want the Green, Green God. I had told Lip- 
Plak-Tengga that, and I meant that. I did not 
want to take the Green, Green God to the outer 
world. I did not want to go out into the outer 
world myself. For where in the outer world, even 
if I turned the Green, Green God into its worth 
in gold — where in the outer world could I find, or 
buy, a paradise like that of the Jallan Batoe — a 
paradise where I was King and where the bravest 
and most beautiful woman in all the world loved 
me? Such love as hers never was to be pur- 
chased ! 

I grasped the slim hand that trembled upon my 
sleeve. I stood facing her, looking down at her. 
And thankfulness for the great love she was be- 
stowing upon me, swam mistily in my eyes then; 
and words of thankfulness, words of the very 
prayers I had tried to recall a short time before, 
rang echoingly through my brains. I grasped her 
hand. I grasped her hand at that moment, 
solemnly, humbly, for all the world as though we 
stood together, she and I, before some holy high 
altar ! 

Belun-Mea Poa-Poa/' I said, quite shakily, 
“you married me fair and square according to 
the Poonan marriage ceremony, and even though 


THE STRANGE STORY 


234 

that ceremony consists only of a kiss, you are 
standing by that marriage as no woman I ever 
have known would have done ! It is not because 
I doubt the sincerity, or the grace of that cere- 
mony that I do this, now. But I want to marry 
you straight and honest, as best I can, according 
to my lights. Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, I’ll marry you 
in the sight of Heaven, so I will ! ” 

I was a man inspired. My earnest desire to be 
worthy of her great love for me, her great love 
and even greater sacrifices for me, inspired me. 
I held her hand and we stood there, facing the 
darkening night, facing, for all we knew, imminent 
torture, impending nameless death. And her hand 
in mine, I recited then what few words I could 
remember of the marriage ritual they used back 
home. What I could not remember, word for 
word, I stammered in my own rough speech; for 
I thought only to be true to my holy idea and to 
make her my wife straight and honest and as best 
I could! 

She did not understand what I was saying — for 
I was speaking, then, in English — but she stood 
very quiet, very humble, her hand warm and 
trembling in mine. She knew, though, that death 
was very near us that night; and she knew, fur- 
ther, that the words I uttered were devout words, 
words which it choked my throat to utter. 

But spare me repeating here the words I said 
then. There was no priest or minister of God to 
speak those words, no Book or Ring to give those 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


235 

words the solemnity due holy things. And so, if 
I were to repeat those words here, to you, my 
marriage to Golden Feather of Flame, that night, 
might sound like a matter of mere words; to you 
again, it might seem as though I burlesqued, even 
blasphemed, sacred rites; and of a certainty, to 
you, those words in the coldness of the retelling 
could not ring with that fire, with that intense 
earnestness which swam my eyes in mist, as I ut- 
tered them, and shook me in every limb. 

But from my heart, I spoke those words; and 
deep in my heart, I believed in the virtue and 
blessedness of those words. I believed then — yea, 
and I believe to this day and always shall believe — 
that I made Golden Feather of Flame, that night, 
my bride in the sight of God! 

And the indisputable fact remains that I have 
stood by that marriage ceremony. I have been 
true to Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, my pagan bride. 
And living or dead, in Heaven or in Hell, I ever 
shall be true to her ! 

For what I said in concluding that ceremony 
was in the nature of a solemn marriage vow, a 
vow to keep, a vow which rigidly I have kept! 
And what I said was: 

“ You are, in truth, my Golden Goddess, my 
Marshal Queen, my beautiful bride, my life ! And 
I’ll stick to you. Golden Feather of Flame, you 
and you alone, until death do us part, so help me 
God!” 

Then, quite overcome by the depths of my sin- 


236 THE STRANGE STORY 

cerity and love, I dropped her hand and hastily 
flung down the corridor and so into my cave- 
chamber. I would let no carved block of precious 
stone shake me off my high place as Raj of the 
Poonan and mate of Belun-Mea Poa-Poa! I 
would let no malignant love-mad High Priestess 
send me, like an overthrown Hyperion, headlong 
down from the sun and headfirst into Hell! I 
would return the god 1 And the Poonan would 
have no cause to crush me ; they would never know ; 
for I would return the god that very night! 

And then I would continue on as Raj, I would 
continue on as the lover and mate of Golden 
Feather of Flame, and we would stand side by 
side on the Nine-Times-Nine Throne through life, 
and we would be happy together In our great love ; 
and perhaps — yes, perhaps there would be little 
golden heads, little children to strengthen, if such 
could be, that bond of love between us! 

There on the couch, shimmering a deep green 
in the wavering torchlight, It lay — that accursed 
Emerald of Destruction and of Dread. It threat- 
ened my paradise on earth. But it should no 
longer threaten my paradise on earth. I was 
nerved to a desperate pitch. I snatched It up, 
thrust It Into the rattan basket and, rattan basket 
under my arm, swiftly rejoined Golden Feather 
of Flame at the left-hand entrance. 

She nodded bravely, as she saw me, and there- 
upon beat out the flame of her torch against the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


237 

wall. Then in the dark, like an echo of my 
thoughts, she spoke. 

“ It is well,” she said. “ We will bring It back. 
The Poonan will never know. We will bring It 
back to the Stone Dobo to-night! ” 


238 


THE STRANGE STORX 


CHAPTER XXV 

OF THE VENTURE THROUGH THE 
POPPY FIELDS AND THE WHISPER- 
ING BAMBOO 

Midnight (said Hyde) — that hour which the 
Poonan call the noon of night — ^had come and 
gone. The myriad stars that had glimmered in 
the vast round O of sky had swum past and upon 
us, then, were those dark long hours that so pa- 
tiently await the dawn. 

We looked out of the left-hand entrance. There 
was no one about. The palms — a line of pickets 
below us — hung their plumes morosely down ; and 
the stupendous stones all about were shadowy 
sleeping beasts, whelmed in feathery black 
growths, and still and dead as though transfixed 
in a spell. 

The rattan basket containing the Green, Green 
God held close under my left arm, I went down 
the nine stone stairs from the Elephant Cave. 
Golden Feather of Flame came after. Once in 
the shadow of the picketed palms, I made to start 
straight down the avenue toward the Stone Dobo 
which, at the far end of that avenue and on ac- 
count of its white stone formation, showed out of 
the all-surrounding blackness like a gray cloud. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


239 

But with a whisper in my ear, Golden Feather 
of Flame stopped me. 

Nda, nduy* she breathed hurriedly as though, 
once again, she were affrighted at my temerity. 
“We cannot go down the Avenue of Palms, my 
Ra], The palms are too far separated, the 
shadows between not dark enough. We cannot 
go down the Avenue of Palms. They might see 
us. Someone might see us.” 

The truth of her statements was very ap- 
parent. I nodded; then quickly asked: 

“ But which way shall we go, if not down this 
avenue ? ” 

“We will go a way that is blacker than the 
night, where the stones and growths will conceal 
us, where no one possibly can see us. It is a way 
parallel to the Avenue of Palms — a way between 
that avenue and the avenue on the other side. We 
will go beneath the trees and through the fields 
that lie behind the rear of the stones that face on 
this avenue and the stones that face on the Avenue 
of Camphor Trees beyond. Come ! ” 

I followed. 

“ Baik” I said. “ Lead the way, for you know 
that way better than I do.” 

She led the way. She skirted, in the shadows 
of the sentinel palms, the outcropping of the Ele- 
phant Stone which was curved and carved in the 
shape of an elephant’s trunk; she sped by the open 
space about the foot of the nine stone stairs of the 
right-hand entrance ; and then where the Elephant 


240 


THE STRANGE STORY 


Stone ended in a walk of banana trees, she led the 
way beneath the great leaves and the weighty 
bunches of bananas toward the rear of that stone. 

Here, at the rear of the Elephant Stone, she 
turned her face once more in the direction of the 
Stone Dobo and started on between the fruit trees 
in a line corresponding to the line of the Avenue 
of Palms we had just left. 

Rising above the trees on either hand, now, 
were many great towering shapes. I knew, of 
course, that they were the cave-stones ; and I knew 
further, though I could not make out this feature, 
that they all were carved into resemblances of 
animals; but to me, in that midnight gloom, they 
all seemed incomprehensible shadows, bulky and 
stupendous and very, very black. 

Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, however, knew the Jallan 
Batoe by day and by night. Come of that intimate 
knowledge, even in the gloom she could make out 
which carven rear of a stone depicted the crouch- 
ing hind legs of a tiger, which the thick powerful 
flanks of a rhinoceros, and which the buttocks of 
a tembadu. To her, each was a guide-post point- 
ing the way toward the now invisible Stone Dobo. 

And thus it was that she led the way with a 
certitude which to me was amazing. For that way 
was thickly black now, truly, as she had said, 
blacker than the night. We were moving be- 
tween banana trees which were like preposterous 
huge cigars and which were crested, high above 
our heads, with leaves twice as tall as myself. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


241 

Those immense leaves and the smaller but more 
numerous leaves of jackfruit trees and heavily 
laden durian trees formed a sort of canopy over 
our heads. 

Times came when we realized how providential 
was that canopy; and those times came when we 
had to skirt beside open broad patches of fields, 
which bordered the fruit trees and were sown to 
low-growing tapioca and tobacco and slender 
sprouts of jungle maize. 

Once we came slap up against a rude fence of 
rattan, spun between the trees and inclosing a 
soggy area planted to rice. We made, in the 
welcome darkness of the trees, around that area. 
But a natural phenomenon about the rice paddy 
stirred my brains. On account of the marshy na- 
ture of the paddy, will-o’-the-wisps flitted with 
weird glowings just above the rice reeds; and 
it seemed to me, such was my state of mind, that 
those floating lights were eyes, glowing eyes, eyes 
of the Poonan watching us, stalking us! 

A deal relieved was I, therefore, when we left 
that rice plot behind and stepped out, quite unex- 
pectedly, upon a stretch of avenue which ran at 
right angles to the Avenue of Palms and seemed 
to intersect that avenue. We could not halt then. 
Like scared impetuous lizards, we slipped across 
that broad avenue into the blackness of a thick 
plantation of palm trees beyond. 

But here I halted to look back. I never remem- 
bered having seen that avenue before, though I 


242 THE STRANGE STORY 

must have journeyed past it that day in going to 
and from the Dobo. I stopped Golden Feather 
of Flame with a hand upon the silken sleeve of 
her robe. I said: 

“ But that avenue we just have crossed — it is 
new to me. Are we right for the Dobof^^ 

She turned quickly and put a finger on my lips. 
She whispered — and her whisper was an impera- 
tive command : 

“Do not speak! We must go in complete 
silence I ” And she looked back across the wide 
stretch of avenue, ahead into the blackness of the 
palms, then to the right, then to the left — and all 
slowly, covertly. 

I did the same. I did not know why ; it was not 
the first time she had looked about her in that 
manner; but I did the same. 

We moved on then in a complete silence. We 
moved slowly, cautiously, outfeeling our way with 
our hands, taking a certain deliberation in the 
placing of each step. For we were moving now 
through the blackness of that thick plantation of 
sago palms, the fernlike fronds of which hung 
low over our heads and shut out completely what- 
ever little light there held in the night. Nowhere 
in that plantation was there a firefly or other 
speck of brightness to lift the Stygian gloom. 

I was handicapped by the burden of that rat- 
tan basket under my left arm, and yet I seemed 
to move more quickly than did my bride. For she 
paused often, now, to peer about her, first to the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


243 

right, then to the left. In the gloom, of course, 
I hardly could see her; she was, in that purple 
robe, almost an Indiscernible shadow; but still I 
knew that continually she was peering, now to the 
right, now to the left. She seemed obsessed by 
some kind of fear. I sought to hearten her. 

“ Do not be afraid, my bride,” I said. “ If 
there is any Poonan lurking about this night, I 
will kill him ! Before he can make a sound, with 
my bare hands, I will kill him ! ” 

I heard her voice, then, low and tremulous, and 
close to my ear as though she were afraid lest 
she should be overheard: 

“ Ah, it is no Poonan, no Poonan, I fear, Raj. 
It is — it is Some One Else — Some One who for- 
ever is abroad in the nights! ” 

I said no more. I knew Whom she meant, and 
what thoughts I had then I dared not give tongue 
to. Only a short while before, she had said it was 
no time for speech; and now I felt It was indeed no 
time for speech. I felt, if anything, it was a time 
for action. 

My long .38 on its .45-frame was heavy In my 
belt. Yet I had thought all along it might as well 
not have been In my belt. I had thought I could 
not use It. There was a reason. If I used it, the 
report of It would arouse all the Poonan. It 
would arouse them and even if I fired It Into the 
thick of them, while It might scare them, in the 
end they would prove sure to be too many for me. 
Now, however, at those words of my bride, my 


244 


THE STRANGE STORY 


free right hand dropped to the butt of that re- 
volver, protruding from my belt. I peered to the 
right, to the left. About me was nothing but 
blackness. And yet, continually, I peered to the 
right, to the left. Grimly, the while, I held onto 
that revolver-butt protruding from my belt. 

We continued on. We continued on through 
that black mystery of palms; and then, altogether 
suddenly, we came to where the plantation ended 
in a broad field of opium poppies. 

On the far side of that broad open field was a 
great clump of tenuous tall bamboo, and beyond 
and above that clump, like some white cloud in 
the dark night, bulked the stone shape of the goal 
of our desperate errand — the monstrous half 
horse, half woman of the Stone Dobo. I turned 
hurriedly to Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, as she made to 
skirt around that poppy field among the palisad- 
ing palms of the plantation. 

Nda, nda!^^ I whispered. “Let us go on. 
Let us hasten straight on through that field, get 
to the Dobo quickly, and be done ! ” 

Slowly, covertly, at the sound of my whisper, 
she looked about her, then started on even as I 
had directed. Out into that field of opium pop- 
pies we flitted like two ghosts. 

And like the ghosts of blossoms were those 
opium poppies in that midnight gloom. They all 
were white in color — a vague whiteness which 
looked ghastly in the gloom ; and all were motion- 
less and dead as though from tropical lassitude. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


245 

Here, out in that field of languorous white pop- 
pies, there was no sound soever. The poppies, 
like bits of down, bent aside before our progress 
with a noiselessness almost uncanny. Nothing 
had voice. The night was profound, utter. Every 
growing thing seemed fascinated, as though await- 
ing the end of our desperate errand. 

And then — and we no more than halfway 
through that field — arose in that profound still- 
ness, the weird unearthly singing of the stones I 

Now, in all my fears of discovery, my fears of 
making sound, never had I thought of that sing- 
ing of the stones; and moreover, I had not been 
long enough in the Jallan Batoe to be used to that 
eery species of phenomenon. I halted dead; Gol- 
den Feather of Flame halted dead. We stood 
then like affrighted rabbits, like rabbits paralyzed 
with fright. 

And we were the only motionless things in a 
world that shook and boomed like a mighty hol- 
low drum. Behind, the palm fronds crackled and 
rattled metallically, as in a harsh wind ; ahead, the 
slender stalks of the bamboo clump swayed and 
whispered; and about and over all, the stupendous 
stone beasts shuddered and roared like real beasts 
in the throes of pain. 

Upon me, those vibrations of sound charged 
like a host of shouting Poonan. I looked about; I 
looked fearfully about; and I saw that the poppies 
were nodding and fluttering as though, through 


THE STRANGE STORY 


246 

their ghostly whiteness, men were crawling on 
hands and knees! 

“Let us go back, Belun-Mea Poa-Poaf^* I 
whispered hoarsely. “ Let us go back! ” 

But she did not hear me. The singing of the 
stones drowned my hoarse whisper and for that, a 
moment later, I was thankful. For a moment 
later, she turned back to me and, her own soul dis- 
quieted by that uproar in the night, she grasped 
my hand. Then onward, scuttling beneath that 
awful overtone of sound, glancing furtively to 
either side, through that field we went, hand in 
hand, like two frightened children. 

But once we had plunged into that brake of 
bamboo, there was no more holding hands. The 
panicled knobby stalks of the bamboo, three or 
more inches in diameter and fully twenty feet tall, 
were set so incredibly close together that they 
were as the straws of a monstrous broom; and 
in order to break through them toward the Avenue 
of Palms and the Stone Doho just beyond, we 
had to press them aside with our hands. 

What with the vibrations of sound in the air, 
that clump of bamboo was swaying with an un- 
der-note that was like a swishing whisper. We 
added to that whispering. As we bent aside the 
thin elastic ratoons, there was, close to our ears, 
a continuous whispering. 

That bamboo had a peculiar property — a prop- 
erty like that of hay released from the press of 
its baling wire. Like swimmers striking out into 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


247 


water, we would sweep to either side with our 
arms the bamboo stalks close about us ; and those 
stalks would sweep against the stalks farther back; 
and then all would bend away and swish back be- 
hind us. Thus, in a certain sequence, near and 
far away the whole brake of bamboo seemed to 
be swaying and swishing. 

It was very dark in that covert and yet, withal, 
I knew that continually my bride was pausing; 
looking to the right, to the left. I paused; con- 
tinually I looked to the right, to the left; and, still 
and tense of nerve and muscle, I listened. Far 
away from me, like the crackling of hay, would 
come to me, even then, the swishing whispers of 
the restless bamboo. 

I felt I knew the cause of those stealthy whis- 
pers, and yet I became very uneasy, all nerves. 
It seemed to me that the bamboo all about us was 
alive; it seemed to me as though we two could 
not make all that continuous whispering through 
the brake. Others must be in that brake, bend- 
ing aside the stalks! 

And, indeed, someone might be close beside me, 
stealing along right at my shoulder; and I would 
never know. Someone might be between Golden 
Feather of Flame and me; and I would never 
know I 

I pressed forward sharply. With my free right 
hand, furiously, I forced a way. Though I could 
not see her now, in the blind blackness of the 
clump, I felt I must be near her. I held out my 


THE STRANGE STORY 


248 

hand. I shouted to make myself heard in all that 
whispering of bamboo and uproar of stones. 

“ Give me your hand, Belun-Mea Poa-Poa! I 
shouted. “ Put back your hand to me ! ” 

My outstretching hand came in contact with a 
hand. I felt slim long fingers, a palm femininely 
smooth and soft. Tightly and securely I grasped 
that hand. 

And thereupon I realized ! I could not see that 
hand in the blackness, but there is nothing so 
acutely susceptible as the sense of touch. And 
my sense of touch told me, now, that though the 
fingers of that hand were long and slim as a 
woman’s, that hand was a huge hand, inches 
longer than my own big hand! And there was 
hair on the back of that hand I Though the palm 
was soft as a woman’s, there was hair on the 
back of that hand just like mine, only denser ! 

It was not Belun-^Mea Poa-Poa*s hand, no 
woman’s hand at all 1 It was the hand of a man, 
a man bigger than I, a huge man! It was the 
hand of the Monster Man! 

He was with us in the bamboo, with us in the 
whispering blackness — walking between my bride 
and me, spying upon us amid the swishing stalks; 
and yet I could not see Him in that blackness — the 
Unspeakable Thing! 

I dropped His hand. I almost dropped the 
basket under my arm. I reeled back, near to 
fainting, nearer to vomiting! 

And then — then someone rushed through the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 249 

bamboo, was in my arms, was clinging to my neck. 
It was Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, and she was whim- 
pering: 

“ He brushed past me in the dark — He was 
close behind me — the Monster Man! Oh, take 
me back, take me back! ’’ 

With her nearness, her dire need of me, strength 
came back to me in a flood. I lifted her in my 
arms and, she clutching the rattan basket now, I 
crashed headdown, furiously, straight through the 
bamboo and out into the Avenue of Palms. There 
I turned and, terror at my heels, I ran, blindly 
ran, directly up the center of that Avenue of 
Palms. 

I know that along the whole length of that ave- 
nue, I encountered no living soul. I know no 
more. For when I came to a knowledge of my- 
self, I was staggering up the nine stone stairs of 
the Elephant Stone with that double burden in my 
arms — my bride and the god. 

I stumbled over old Mohong in the dark bend 
of the corridor. Upon the couch in the cave, gen- 
tly I placed Golden Feather of Flame. I straight- 
ened quickly then to look about me. But the Ele- 
phant Cave was exactly as it had been, save only 
that the stone walls were thrumming with that 
overtone of sound and the torches in those walls 
were burned down to mere stumps. 


250 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XXVI 

AFTER WHAT MANNER HYDE AND 
HIS BRIDE AWAITED THE DARK 

When the singing of the stones died away later 
that morning and simultaneous with the light of 
dawn (Hyde Went on without a pause), I grew 
calm enough to question my wife as to who was 
that Monster Man. 

“ I do not know who He is,” she answered 
hastily. “ But I do know He is no Poonan; for 
He is bigger than any Poonan, bigger even than 
you, my Raj.^* 

“ Has He been here long? ” 

“ Ever since I can remember. He is the vassal 
now of Flower of the Silver Star, but He was the 
vassal of her mother, who was High Priestess be- 
fore her.” 

“ But where did He come from ? Who is He ? ” 

“ That I do not know at all, my Raj. I know 
little of Him. Indeed, in the bamboo brake this 
night, I came closer to Him than ever I came be- 
fore in all my life. It was terrifying. Let us not 
talk more of Him.” 

But I persuaded her to conquer her recollec- 
tions of that night and to tell me what she knew 
of the Monster Man. Truly, as she had said, she 
knew but little ; and yet as little as she knew, none 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


251 

of the Poonan, save only Lip-Plak-Tengga^ knew 
more. 

It appeared that the Monster Man was a fa- 
miliar of the High Priestess; He dwelt in the 
caves beneath the cyclopean cave-temple of the 
Doho; and just as Lip-Plak-Tengga herself had 
told me, He attended upon her slightest call like 
some bad antu or evil spirit. 

Never had He been seen in the sunlight. Of 
course, He had appeared in the daytime, during 
great ceremonies in the Stone Doho, just as He 
had on the occasion when I first saw Him; but 
just as on that occasion. He had never come out 
into the open where He could be fully seen. 

To the Poonan then. He was but a Shadow, a 
Shadow only blacker and more monstrous than the 
shadows of trees and growths; yet a Shadow 
with life, who forever was abroad in the nights. 

The mention of His name — the Monster Man 
— was enough to cause any Poonan to shudder; 
the mere talking of Him, now, caused my bride 
to shudder; so, though I had learned but a vague 
bit about the Monster Man, I left off questioning 
her further. 

Through the next day, we kept to the Elephant 
Cave, my wife and I, and waited. We waited for 
the darkness of night, during which time we hoped 
to make a second and surely a successful venture 
at returning the Green, Green God; and mo- 
mentarily, also, through that day, we waited to 
hear the sound of men ascending the nine stone 


252 


THE STRANGE STORY 


stairs, the sound of men coming to arrest us. We 
felt not like potentates, but like prisoners. 

Yet no command of men strode into our cave 
to arrest us; no watch of sentries stood guard 
beneath the palms before either entrance; no one 
at all entered either entrance to tell us there was 
reason for placing us under surveillance. 

And still, withal, we felt that we were under 
surveillance. For all day long, up and down the 
avenue, passed and repassed Golden Men and 
Golden Women, now in twos, now in threes, and 
now even in groups of a dozen. They walked 
swiftly past, as though intent on some urgent busi- 
ness ; but always as they passed our stone, always 
they looked up suddenly and then as suddenly 
looked away. Not one of them but did that, 
swiftly, slyly; and not one of those groups but 
walked away with their heads held close together 
in low talk. 

I watched them in secret just within the right- 
hand entrance. My wife sat within, upon the 
couch in the half-dark of the cave, the Green, 
Green God in its basket upon her lap. She had 
constituted herself a sort of inner guard over the 
Green, Green God, as I had to watch without at 
the right-hand entrance. 

And I watched at that right-hand entrance to 
turn anyone away from entering therein. I did 
not want anyone to see old Mohong where he 
lay in the dark, as I feared some attempt might 
be made to release him. I did not so much care 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 253 

if anyone should enter the other entrance. My 
wife and I had agreed between us that I should 
signal her, if anyone entered there, so that she 
should have plenty of time to put the basket down 
behind the couch and cover it with the pehang 
skins, ready to her hand; and then she was to sit 
upon the couch before it, wholly collected and 
expectant. 

We were determined, my wife and I, that should 
anyone come and attempt to pry about, we would 
keep the Green, Green God concealed at the risk 
of our lives. We knew that was only another 
way of saving our lives. We were resolved, there- 
fore, to stand between the hiding-place of the 
God and any spies; and they would have to 
bludgeon us down first, I assure you, ere they 
would win to that hiding-place and drag forth the 
Green, Green God. But nobody bothered us, 
nor so much as halted before our stone, save and 
except to glance swiftly up at either entrance 
and then as swiftly, speaking in low tones, to 
speed on. 

It was during the hours following midday, 
when the crackle of the dry leaves under the feet 
of those passing groups awoke sounds distinct in 
all that deadness of heat, that the low words of 
those passing groups floated to my ears. As a 
group of women passed, I heard one ask softly: 

“ The poor old Adjte — are you sure? ” 

** Ahe!^^ nodded another. “The Man-Child 
bound him as we bind a bundle of leaves for a 


THE STRANGE STORY 


254 

torch. The old Adjte is still in there.” And she 
looked quickly up at the stone, the others as 
quickly following suit and as quickly looking 
away. 

A group of men passed then. 

Ad jie Tumhiik Ladda/^ one was saying in 
guttural tones — “ Chieftain Long Knife says that 
either the Great Marshal King is out of his knowl- 
edge, or else he is a devil-devil. He leaped at the 
Adjie as though he would eat him. He would 
have too, the Adjie thinks, only he fled.” 

I smiled at that. The Chieftain called Long 
Knife was he whom I had dubbed “ the Gunner.” 
And to judge from that bit of eavesdropping, the 
Gunner had not seen, on the night prior, the 
Green, Green God on the couch in my Elephant 
Cave ! None of the Poonan knew as yet that the 
Green, Green God was gone from the Dohol 

Well might I smile ! For I knew, thereat, that 
Lip-Plak‘Tengga had not informed them that the 
God was in my keeping. She had kept her knowl- 
edge secret, even as I had thought she would. 
And I was safe — for a while! 

But how long that while would last, I did not 
know. And yet there was that about the fact that 
the High Priestess had kept secret her knowledge 
thus long, which seemed to whisper of some slow, 
deep game. Lip-Plak-Tengga was playing a slow, 
a deep game. I was sure now, with a tremendous 
certitude, that she was playing a slow deep game. 
She dared not act in the open. She dared not 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


255, 

act the informer. Still was I the King and Man- 
Child to the Poonan; and she dared not match 
her words against that of the Man-Child, her 
assertions against what I, as King, might assert. 

She would wait! That was her game! She 
would never inform the Poonan, but rather bide 
her time till they discovered the truth for them- 
selves. I realized that and, in that realization, 
found hope. Many things might occur to put a 
new light on affairs; all might yet be righted ere 
that terrible discovery was made ; for we hoped — 
hoped with a hope which knew neither metes nor 
bounds — to return that accursed god back to the 
Stone Doho that night! 

As it was, the Poonan had not the faintest glim- 
mering of the fearful truth. Only concerned 
were they over what had befallen old Mohong 
W 00k. To them, the binding and the captivity of 
the old fellow seemed quite an unaccountable, even 
tragic, state of affairs. They did not know why 
I kept old Mohong prisoner, nor could they guess 
what I was going to do with him. They probably 
feared lest old Mohong should suffer physically 
from the length and rigors of his captivity, or 
should come to some worse harm at my hands. 
For these reasons, they furtively watched my Ele- 
phant Stone. 

Of course, it was a ticklish business, this hold- 
ing the aged Chieftain prisoner. What of the long 
duration of his imprisonment and the severity of 
it — bound as he was hand and foot, unable to 


THE STRANGE STORY 


256 

twitch a muscle and lying in the draughty cor- 
ridor — there was always the chance that he might 
contract some illness, such as pneumonia, which to 
so old a man might prove fatal. And his very 
captivity alone, not to speak of such a fatality, 
spelt suspicion of us by the Poonan. 

That suspicion might lead them, eventually, into 
my cave to investigate. But even though I real- 
ized we could not afford to allow any suspicions to 
gather about us, while the Green, Green God was 
in our keeping, I had not the slightest notion of 
releasing old Mohong from his bonds and allow- 
ing him to go free. 

That would be foolhardy — aye, worse than fool- 
hardy. It would be as much as self-destruction 
to release old Mohong ere first we returned the 
god to the Dobo. If old Mohong were released, 
now, he would tell all the Poonan that the god 
was gone from the Doho, that they could find it in 
our cave. The Poonan would rise up then and 
whelm us over. It would mean our disgrace, our 
downfall and our death. 

Once we returned the Green, Green God to the 
Doho, however, all would be well. We could re- 
lease the old Chieftain, thereupon, and let him tell 
all the Poonan. For the Poonan, of a certainty, 
would look first into the Dobo to see if the god 
really were gone; they would find it there; and 
then they would laugh to scorn old Mohong as a 
doddering, whimsey-haunted old man. 

It still was not too late to return the Green, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 257 

Green God to the Doho. As the Poonan did not 
know as yet that the god had been taken from the 
Dobo, they might never know. That night we 
would return the god, we would avert all the 
havoc that threatened ! 

And never would the Poonan know that the 
god had been in my cave. Lip-Plak-Tengga 
would be robbed of the opportunity to spring her 
secret knowledge. For we would formulate some 
kind of an excuse to explain why we had held 
old Mohong a prisoner; and if, even after all that, 
the Poonan should still entertain any suspicions 
of us, we would live down in time those suspicions. 
We would live on through the years. Golden 
Feather of Flame and I, as King and Queen of 
the Jallan Batoe — as King and Queen of a para- 
dise on earth! 

Thus thinking, I did not forget, the while, to 
pay heed to the whispers of the passing groups. 
But they all were in the trend I have told you — 
all save one. That one came when the Gunner 
himself passed by, in company with three men 
who were as squat and almost as muscled as him- 
self. He lookei^ up, did the Gunner, his Chinese 
eyes mere glinting slits in the sunlight. 

“ It is strange that such misfortune should come 
to our old AdjiCy^ he said, with a shake of his 
bullet head. “ He did nothing to deserve it, for 
that I know because a similar fate almost befell 
me. It seems as though misfortunes have come 
to all of us; for it is long since the Poonan went 


258 THE STRANGE STORY 

about, whispering. It seems almost as if the 
Green, Green God were stolen from the Doho 
and misfortunes blowing upon us, as It comes to 
life!” 

One of the three men made a hasty sign of re- 
monstrance. 

Nda, nda! ” admitted the Gunner as he passed 
on. “ I know it is not that the god has been 
stolen; it is no fault of the god. It is only the 
fault of the Man-Child, our King. Since he came, 
we all have been whispering It seems, and going 
about as though frightened. I do not know — — ” 
But I could hear no more ; he had passed on out 
of earshot. I turned thereat and went back 
through the corridor Into the cave. I told Gol- 
den Feather of Flame what I last had heard. 

“ The Chieftain, Tumhuk Ladda” I ended, 
“ suspects that something is wrong, altogether 
wrong. And he is very strong In his suspicions. 
He thinks I have brought all forms of misfor- 
tune upon the Poonan. God knows, I have 
brought misfortunes enough upon you, my bride ! 
But the trouble is that the Chieftain says it seems 
almost as if the Green, Green God were stolen I ” 
She looked bravely up at me. 

Ak! ” she said. “ Bad — that is very bad. But 
we must not let them know we fear; we must act 
not like prisoners, but like potentates. You had 
better show yourself to the Poonan, my Raj. Go 
to the left-hand entrance where it will not matter 
if they enter. Show yourself to them and com- 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


259 

mand them to bring food — we have not eaten since 
yesterday. The effect of a command on them 
will be well.” 

I nodded, brightening. Surely enough, as she 
had said, would a command have a good effect 
upon their suspicious souls. They would either 
have to lose their suspicions of me enough to obey 
me, or else they would have to run counter to my 
command and show that they dared disobey me. 
And I did not think they would dare disobey me. 
For I meant to show them, by the arrogance of my 
command, that I yet was King. 

I strode to the left-hand entrance. A group of 
men passing up the avenue, at that moment, saw 
me ; and all in that moment, their faces went long 
and stiff as though chiseled in stone and as though 
they themselves were turned completely into stone, 
they stood stock-still, fascinated. 

I knew then. Still was I to them the Man- 
Child of Genghis Khan whom they could not help 
fearing as the Destroyer and whom they could not 
help kowtowing to as their King. For, of a sud- 
den, they got some control of their surprise, and 
down to the ground nine times they bowed. 

In the while that they were bowing, other groups 
happening to pass, saw me and joined in the bow- 
ing; and in that while, after I had given them 
plenty of time to bow to me and thus take to 
heart the awe of my position, I said: 

“ Quick, some of you ! Bring food. Bring 
water. Bring torches for my cave this night. I 


26 o 


THE STRANGE STORY 


command it. I, the Man-Child and your King, 
command it ! ” 

All seemed eager to obey; for the command no 
sooner had gone forth, than all turned and sped 
away. I stood there then, and for a time I was 
alone. Before me the Jallan Batoe lay baked and 
empty, like some beautiful oasis after a plague. 
But after a time, they returned, as many as a 
round dozen of them — for in numbers is courage. 
And some bore bundles of long leaves, bunched 
and prepared as torches; others gourds or hungs 
of sulphur water; while still others bore rattan 
baskets and wooden platters heaped with steam- 
ing meats, kwe-kwe or buttered cakes, baked 
breadfruit, large durian oranges and the roasted 
edible seeds of the jackfruit. 

They were headed by the Gunner, who, despite 
the strength of his suspicions, seemed to have 
summoned up sufficient courage to lead them. 
Slowly, hesitantly, they mounted the nine stone 
stairs beneath me and laid the foodstuffs and 
torches upon the stone threshold at my feet. 
Then, even to the Gunner, all turned tail and pre- 
cipitancy plunged down the stairs and away. 

I smiled, picked up what I could of the food 
and torches and, in several trips, carried all in- 
side into the cave. I placed the gourds of water, 
the wooden platters and the rattan baskets of 
food and fruits upon the couch; and then we re- 
laxed our vigilance somewhat, and ate and drank 
adequately. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


261 


We went out together then to the bend in the 
horseshoe-shaped corridor where lay old Mo- 
hong, We carried the remainder of the food — 
still quite a large ration ; and we lighted our way 
with a torch, for the sun was slanting down be- 
hind the rim of the crater, by now, and our cave 
was darkening rapidly. 

Now, long before this, I had thought of ex- 
plaining the case in its entirety to old Mohong. 
I had thought to tell him how Lip-Plak-T engga 
had duped me into receiving the god from her 
hands in order that the Poonan, once they learned 
it was in my possession, should rise up and whelm 
me over and thereby work out for her both a 
revenge and a balm for my having refused her 
love! I had thought to tell him that Golden 
Feather of Flame and I honestly meant to re- 
turn the god to the Doho and, to that end, sin- 
cerely were striving; and I had thought to tell 
him that, most of all, we did not want the Poonan 
to know the true posture of affairs until that pos- 
ture of affairs was thoroughly righted — the god 
returned to the Doho and everything, once more, 
as it had been. 

But one look now at his slits of eyes glowing, in 
the torchlight, black and old and malicious as a 
snake’s, and I paused to reconsider my thought. 
The man hated me. He hated me as poisonously 
and consumingly as nitric acid hates an engraver’s 
copper. 

He thought I had stolen the Green, Green God 


262 


THE STRANGE STORY 


from the Doho. He believed that slowly but in- 
evitably the Green, Green God was coming to life ; 
and with a terrific apprehension born of that hor- 
rible legend, he feared the misfortunes that un- 
alterably must follow. All this, it was his merci- 
less religion to believe and dread. And with an 
awful dread, he believed that in another day, per- 
haps — surely not more than a moon — the god 
would fly screaming at him, peck at his back, rob 
him of his heart, rob him of all life. 

And he wanted to live. He was an old man, 
true ; but in no one is the desire to live so strong 
as in the old. He wanted to live. 

I was the cause therefore, the indirect cause but 
still the cause, of all his religious dreads and awful 
terrors. He would not listen to my explanations. 
It mattered not to him how I had come into pos- 
session of the god. To him it only mattered, 
solely mattered, that I had in my unrightful keep- 
ing a Dread God and that that Dread God was 
arousing momentarily to life. To him my pos- 
session of that Dread God was tantamount to 
meaning the end of his life, the end of all life 
in the Jallan Batoe — the end of the whole world! 

He would not listen to me. He was an old man 
with an old man’s fixedness of idea. And he had 
but one idea now. He hated me with a rancor 
that was deep-seated, whole-souled, malignant and 
intolerable 1 

Wherefore, I did not tell old Mohong. And 
yet I knew that just as soon as we removed the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


263 

gag from his withered old mouth in order to allow 
him to eat, just so soon would he scream out. We 
left the removal of that gag till the last. We 
eased the rattan bindings from about his wrists 
and arms. Then, finally, we took out the gag. 

I had expected him to scream, I repeat; and 
yet when he did scream now, I jumped in every 
nerve of me. For he was screaming shrilly: 

“The Man-Child has stolen the God! The 
Man-Child has stolen the Green, Green God! It 
will come to life, it will come — — ” 

With both hands, I grasped his reedy wind- 
pipe. I held him tight by that windpipe, tighter, 
tighter 

And then, wholly suddenly, upon my ears burst 
the sunset singing of the stones ! 

I released my hands from about his stringy 
neck. 

“Now yell ! ” I shouted grimly. I shouted to 
make myself heard in all that thrum and hum 
of the stone about our ears. 

But he only wheezed and choked, and looked at 
me with slits of eyes that were black and old and 
venomous as a snake’s. He knew it would be 
worse than useless to scream, now, amid all that 
shaking sound in the air; he knew he never would 
be heard; so sullenly, therefore, he fell to eating. 

Ere that Wail of the Men Who-Would-Have- 
Been had ceased as abruptly as it had commenced, 
we gagged old Mohong once more and trussed 
him up as tightly as he had been. Then we left 


THE STRANGE STORY 


264 

him in the corridor — a black bundle with flashing 
eyes — and went back with our shaky light into the 
great cave-chamber. 

I placed three of the prepared torches in sockets 
in the walls, and lighted them from the flame of 
the torch in my hand. And then, as I was plac- 
ing that torch in my hand into a wall-socket, my 
bride came to my side and leaned softly against 
me and reached up her little hand to my beard; 
and thus, gently pulling my head down by that 
beard, she kissed me upon the mouth. Softly 
thereupon, she whispered: 

“ Let us make the venture early this night, my 
Raj. Let us take That Which is in the basket 
and go with It to the Doho at once. Yes; at once, 
my Raj, for we have no time to lose.” 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


265 


CHAPTER XXVII 

HOW HYDE SAW THAT WHICH WAS 
ABROAD IN THE NIGHT 

We came out to the right-hand entrance, my 
wife and I (continued Hyde) ; and, just as on the 
night prior, in my belt was that long .38 on its 
.45-frame, under my left arm was that basket con- 
taining the Green, Green God. 

Outside, with tropic swiftness, night had shut 
down upon the Jallan Batoe, as though, in fancy, 
some great peacock, perched upon a jagged tooth 
on the rim of the crater far above had spread, of 
a sudden, its wings over all. And velvety purple 
as a peacock’s breast was that vast O of sky over- 
head. 

I led the way. And I led the way not by the 
circuitous route we had pursued the night before. 
I was determined now to make a quick and bold 
try at returning the Green, Green God. Where- 
fore, I led the way straight down the Avenue of 
Palms, under shadow of those palms on the one 
hand and under shadow of the stones and growths 
on the other. 

Though I knew, for a certainty, that the Poonan 
did not know as yet that the god was gone from 
the Dobo, yet my nerves were drawn to such a 
tension by the events which had occurred that day 


266 THE STRANGE STORY 

and the night before, that I often fancied, now, 

I saw and heard strange things in the purple dark. 

It seemed to me, as we passed close by open 
cultivated fields, that everywhere among the 
growths were eyes watching me ; it seemed 
to me that dark shapes flitted to either side of 
us, beneath the shadov/s of the palms, and con- 
cealed themselves behind the trunks; and once I 
caught the sound of a crackling leaf, as though, 
indeed, someone prowling in the dark had stepped 
upon that leaf. But without any real misadven- 
ture, we put the Elephant Stone far behind us. 

And now, quick rising, a scared-looking moon 
sailed over the wall of the crater. In a trice, 
thereupon, the Jallan Batoe became almost as 
light as day. The Avenue of Palms lay white as 
a ribbon of silver ahead; and ahead, at its end, 
uprose before us the tremendous shape of the half 
horse, half woman of the Stone Dobo. 

But the Stone Dobo did not glow with that in- 
candescent brightness lent by many torches flicker- 
ing inside. There were no torches flickering in- 
side. Inside, within its white, white stone walls 
and paneled doors, there was only Plutonian 
gloom. 

And still, withal, that Stone Dobo looked coldly 
white and sublime; for bathed in the effulgence 
of the moon, as it was, its white stone shape in 
that luster was like an eminence robed in snow. 
The half horse, half woman, so marvelously 
carved, seemed almost alive. Indeed, in that 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 267 

luster, the long curved stony lips of that woman 
seemed to be smiling a smile as mysterious and 
inscrutable as that of the Sphinx. 

Now, before that huge cave-temple was a broad 
open space of avenue, bathed in moonlight, and 
sweeping up to that great flight of stairs which 
was as a white cascade in the moonwash. I had 
halted in the shadow of a palm near the very end 
of the line of palms; I wanted to gather myself 
ere making a dash across that open moon-swept 
space. And now, as I waited, crept to my side my 
bride. Golden Feather of Flame. 

“ The Dobo is dark within,” she whispered. 

That is well. There is no one inside. And we 
will soon be inside, my Raj. We will rid our- 
selves soon of That Which is in the basket, and 
then we will be at ease. But let us not pause; 
let us go boldly on. Everything depends on the 
next few minutes.” 

Her words were heartening words to me ; for if 
she who was as brave as she was beautiful, thought 
nothing of the breathless dash we should have to 
make across that open moon-washed space, there 
surely seemed no reason why I should hesitate. 
I freshened my grip on the basket under my arm, 
on that revolver in my belt; then on toward the 
end of the line of palms and that open sweep be- 
yond, I started. 

Well, as I did, on the sudden from behind one 
of the few remaining palms, stepped out a woman 
dressed in a fawn-colored leopard skin, spotted 


268 


THE STRANGE STORY 


with black mottlings and clinging so tightly to her 
feline form that it seemed sewn upon her ! 
Against that moon-washed background of stone 
and avenue, she stood motionless, distinct as a 
statue carved in onyx — her hair rippling blue- 
black about her shoulders, her eyes dark and lus- 
trous, and her face white, in the moonlight, so 
that it seemed of a ghastly pallor. Lip-Plak- 
Tengga, the High Priestess, it was, surely enough; 
and she stood thus before us as though to bar our 
way. 

But she could not bar our way now, with the 
achievement of our purpose so near at hand. I 
did not pause. Startled though I was by her un- 
expected, her even dramatic appearance, I did not 
pause. I drew close to her. 

She lifted her golden arms, glinting with those 
platinum bands, to either side, level with her 
shoulders, as if indeed to bar our way. In a voice 
that I thought was pitched unnaturally loud — as 
though for the sole purpose that others beside our- 
selves might hear — she said: 

Ahe! You have come. To put back the 
Green, Green God you stole, you have come ! ” 

It was not a question. It was a statement, a 
denunciation. It was slowly uttered, carefully and 
clearly enunciated. It was said, in short and to 
repeat, in such a manner that others beside our- 
selves might hear! 

I peered about me in the shadows of the palms, 
now to the right, now to the left. I saw no one. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 269 

Yet in a voice that others beside ourselves might 
hear — if they were listening — I said: 

“We have come; yes. We have come to put 
back That Which you, Lip-Plak-Tengga^ stole 
from the Dobo! Now out of our way, out of our 
way, you she-cat 1 ” And I made to walk on. 

But she swung her arms before her and ex- 
tended them toward me. Her wickedly slant 
eyes blazed; her eyes blazed with a look of hate 
that was enough to burn and sear one. And she 
whispered sibilantly: 

“Listen, White Man! Three times you cast 
me aside and more than three times. You smote 
me; you spat upon me; you heaped offal upon 
my head — Ahe! upon the head of Lip-Plak- 
Tengga, High Priestess of the Poonan, who is too 
high for any Poonan to kiss, to whom no Poonan 
may even hope to attain! You did all that; but 
now — ^now I have you in my fingers ! In my 
fingers I have you, I say, and I will wring all 
life from you — so ! ” 

And she clenched and worked her slim fingers 
together, as though between them she were wring- 
ing out some wet rag. 

But I laughed at her. I was altogether un- 
afraid. I was used to her threats by now; and I 
felt, if all she could do was to threaten me, there 
was no good reason now for me to be afraid of 
her. I made determinedly to stride past her. 
But again her hands stopped me; only this time 
and firmly they were pressed against my chest. 


270 THE STRANGE STORY 

‘‘ Stop ! Step not a step nearer ! ” she cried 
stridently. “ You must obey ! A he! You must 
obey; for I, Lip-Plak-Tengga, command it and I, 
Lip-Plak-Tengga, must be obeyed. I can crush 
you at any hour with a single word ! ” 

“ Damme ! ” I swore. “ Do you think your 
threats will stop me now, with that Doho but a 
jump away ! Do you, do you ! ” I choked with 
rage. “I’ll show you!” I exploded, and sav- 
agely I brushed her hands aside. 

I was wild at the idea that she should think her 
threats could thwart us, and we so near to the end 
of our desperate errand. I was wild with a 
Berserker rage. I did not care, then, if there were 
Poonan lurking in the shadows of the palms. I 
had a gun and I could get them. I could get some 
of them — six of them anyway — ere they got me. 

I lifted my right foot to step toward her — but 
I put that foot down, suddenly, halfway in its 
natural stride. My bride’s frantic fingers were on 
my arm, pulling me back with the strength of some 
abnormal fear. Her frantic whisper was in my 
ears: 

“ Do you not see — do you not see It ! There, 
there — behind her — in the shadow of those 
palms I ” 

I looked. Behind Lip-Plak-Tengga, in the 
black shadow of a clump of palms, surely enough, 
I saw something — a man! No; not a man either; 
only a man’s head. The body of that man was 
completely enveloped in the black concealing 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


271 

shadow cast by the thick plumes and stout trunks 
of those palms, and nothing of him was visible, 
save and except the head that was thrust out from 
the cloaking darkness into the moonlight. 

That head loomed above my head, as I stood 
there erect and tense, just as my head had loomed 
above the heads of the squat Poonan. But he was 
no Poonan. He was taller than I ; to judge from 
the height of his extended head, he was over seven 
feet tall — preposterously tall. And yet his head 
was not such a large head; it was but little larger 
than my head; indeed, for such a preposterously 
tall man, it was a small head. 

Thrust out on a thick neck from the blackness of 
the palms, the face was only an inky smudge in 
the uncertain moonlight; but the outline of the 
head was a bit more distinct. That head was 
turned not toward me but toward Lip-Plak- 
Tengga; it was in profile; and therefore, profiled 
as it was against that white background of moon- 
washed space and stone, it was like a silhouette 
cut in black paper. 

And just as with a silhouette, just so could I 
remark, after a fashion, the outline of most of 
the features of that head. And every feature of 
that head, which I could remark, seemed simian 
in characteristics, negroloid, bestial and primor- 
dial. The brow swept so sharply back from a 
protuberant brush of eyebrows, there seemed to 
be no brow at all. The top of the head was flat, 
perfectly flat; it fell away to the neck, without 


THE STRANGE STORY 


272 

bulge, without curve, as if, indeed, it was only an 
elongation of that neck which had thickened and 
swelled and somehow, asymmetrically, formed 
into frontal features. 

And those frontal features! The eyes little 
and glittering; the jaws prognathous as a ba- 
boon’s; the nose a simous smudge, flat and wide- 
nostriled, like a negro’s; and the high cheek- 
bones and thick protruding lips, all just like a 
negro’s. In fact, though there were simian fea- 
tures about that profile, there were more features 
— in nose and cheek-bones, glittering eyes and pro- 
truding lips — characteristic of the profile of a 
negro. And that whole profile was black, as I 
said; black against that wash of moon-lighted 
background — a thick deep black as though the 
skin of his face were the skin of a negro. 

“ But is he a negro? ” the doubt flashed through 
my mind. “ Surely not a negro from Africa, for 
how could he come to be here in the heart of 
Borneo! No; if he be a negro at all, he must be 
one of the blacks from the islands adjacent to 
Borneo — New Guinea, perhaps — and he wandered 
into the Jallan Batoe somehow, years before.” 

I did not know quite what to think, and I was 
thinking quickly, furiously. The blacks of New 
Guinea are a small race, I knew, a pigmy race; 
and yet this man seemed gigantic in height. 
Though his body was out of sight, hidden by the 
palm trunks, hidden by the concealing shadows, he 
was gigantic in height to judge from the loftiness 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


273 


of his extended head. The only conclusion I could 
reach was that he was a paradox, a monstrosity, 
who had been born, strangely, in a pigmy race. 

“ Such monstrosities do occur,” I said with cer- 
titude, “ especially among races but slightly re- 
moved from the brute. And he is such a mon- 
strosity. He is an abysmal black.” 

But I was wrong; I was horribly wrong. He 
was a more terrible monstrosity than any abysmal 
black. He was something nastier ! 

I did not know that then. I only knew that he 
was the slave to Lip-Plak-Tengga, And I felt 
that he was the slave to her — a colossal man the 
slave to the will of a feline yet comparatively frail 
woman — because, as I knew was usual with such 
monstrosities, he was either brutish as an animal 
of the wilds, or else dull-witted, lack-witted. 

And surely enough, his head for such a huge 
body was, as I said, small, meager, dwarfed. 
That, and the shape of it — or better, the lack of 
shape to it — showed that he lacked wits as well. 
And his eyes now, glittering out of the shadow 
from under their beetling bunches of eyebrow, 
were little and round and shiny as buttons; brut- 
ish brainless eyes; eyes little and round and 
malignantly shiny as a snake’s I 

I looked at him. He never moved, never 
blinked an eye. So, as I looked, slowly and 
covertly, my right hand dropped down to that 
heavy .38 in my belt. He was the Monster Man. 
But Monster Man, though He was, He was now 


THE STRANGE STORY 


274 

not nearly so dreadful a sight as had been the 
vague vision of His lurching terrible shape behind 
the old, old rug, that feel in the dark of His huge 
hairy soft-palmed hand! To me, now. He was 
only a black, even though a gigantic monstrosity of 
a black. He was only some Repulsive Thing to be 
shot down like a mad dog in the road, to be 
crushed under heel like a slimy snake I 

With a sudden steeling of nerve and purpose, 
an incredibly swift action, I swung up my right 
hand. In that right hand was the long .38; and 
tightening upon the trigger of that .38, as my arm 
swung up, was my index finger! 

But I never shot. Indeed I no more than got 
that nine-inch barrel fully drawn from my belt; 
for my arm was stopped midway, ere completely 
it swung up. And it was not the High Priestess 
who stopped my arm with such panicky haste. It 
was my bride, my beautiful Golden Feather of 
Flame ! 

“ Don’t ! Oh, don’t ! ” she whispered, her voice 
indescribable with a kind of horror. “ Don’t use 
your knife ! Don’t move a step nearer ! Don’t do 
anything, any ” 

“ But this is no knife ! ” I breathed excitedly. 
And as excitedly I tried to free my arm. “ Don’t 
stop me, don’t stop me, my bride ! You do not 
know. I will kill Him ! With one shot, I will kill 
Him!” 

She released my arm, but only to clutch wildly 
at my shirt, at my shoulders. She clutched at me 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


275 

convulsively, as though in the agitation of sudden 
weakness. 

“I am afraid!*’ she breathed. “You cannot 
kill Him! No one can kill Him! And I am 
afraid — I weaken — ^I am afraid of the Monster 
Man ! ” And her hands dropping limply from 
me, her golden head sagging forlornly, down to 
the ground at my feet, she slipped. 

The gun slid back into my belt. A great fear 
upon me — fear for her and her alone — quickly I 
stooped above her. 

“ Go back! ” vibrated a voice in my ear. “ I 
told you, you were a fool. Now you know you are 
a fool. You cannot return the Green, Green God. 
You can never return the Green, Green God. Go 
back. For never will the Green, Green God be 
returned to the Stone Doho until the Poonan know 
and rise up and kill you! I, the High Priestess 
of the Poonan, say that; and I but bide my time. 
Go back, you fool, for I spare you to-night.” 

But I paid no heed to that High Priestess; I 
paid no heed to that motionless Monster Man 
behind her. All I knew then was that Golden 
Feather of Flame was at my feet, had fainted 
dead away at my feet — my wife, my own, my 
beautiful and brave ! 

I picked up her poor limp form. Upon Lip- 
Plak-Tengga then and upon her Hideous Mon- 
strosity, I turned my back. One edge of that 
rattan basket crushed between my teeth, my wife 
limp in my arms, on I went, straight up that avenue 


THE STRANGE STORY 


276 

down which, but a few minutes before, so hope- 
fully we had come. 

I stumbled into the Elephant Cave, my wife 
faintly stirring in my arms. Stumbling over 
charred torches upon the floor, I laid her gently 
upon the couch; and consciousness having com^ 
back to her fully now, she lay there, shivering 
and weeping with weakness and fear. 

“ Another time ! ” she sobbed. “ Only another 
time ! We will bring back the Green, Green God 
to-morrow — to-morrow night ! ” 

Her words were brave words; but I hardly 
heard them. I was looking at the floor, looking 
fearfully at the floor. Four torches burned, above 
my head, in the sockets in the walls; I remembered 
having placed those torches there; but I never 
remembered having thrown these other charred 
torches upon that floor. There were two, there 
were three; and one still smoked faintly, and one 
still glowed a dull red. Someone had been in the 
cave. Someone had been in the cave but a short 
time before! 

A subtle suspicion fired my brains. I leaped to 
one of the torches in the walls and that torch cast- 
ing shaky shadows, dashed out into the dark cor- 
ridor. In that corridor, in the pitchy bend, there 
was no silent black bundle with flashing eyes — no 
bound heap of bones and skin and hate — no Mo- 
hong PFook at all! The old Adjie with all his 
knowledge of us, was gone ! 

I knew then. The Poonan had come for old 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 277 

Mohong. They had cut his bonds, pulled that 
gag from his withered mouth. And the Poonan 
knew now! They knew, from old Mohong, that 
the Green, Green God was gone from the Dobo, 
They knew that we had the Green, Green God in 
our Elephant Cave. And they would come, now, 
for us! 


278 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
WHEN THE POONAN ROSE 

But they did not come (Hyde said). The mo- 
ments slipped into minutes, the minutes into hour- 
fractions, and the hour-fractions at last into the 
fullness of a whole hour of waiting. And they did 
not come. 

In the dark of that great cave-chamber — for 
I had beaten out the torches against the walls — 
we sat upon the couch, my wife and I, side by side. 
The rattan basket containing the Green, Green 
God was in Belun-Mea Poa-Poa^s lap; the heavy 
.38 was held tightly in my right hand, its long 
barrel pointing toward that low doorway. Thus 
we waited. And we waited thus, because it was 
the only thing we could think of doing. 

We waited for the muffled tread of bare feet 
in the grassy avenue, the soft flop of bare feet 
upon the stone stairs of the entrances. It was 
a torture of waiting. The suspense was on us 
like thumbscrews. I wanted, dearly wanted, to 
cry: 

“ Come on, you Golden Rats! I hear you out 
there 1 Come on, damn you, and finish us quick! ” 

But outside the moon-bathed night was without 
stir, silent as the dead. No bare feet trod through 
the muffling grass of the avenue, no bare feet 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


279 


flopped upon the moon-washed stairs. It was a 
soundless night — like a night before Adam when 
only gigantic fat worms lifted their dumb, blind 
heads in a great gray world of slime and ooze. 
The Poonan did not come ! 

I leaped up and paced the floor. I paced back 
and forth, back and forth; but always I paced 
close to that low doorway, the revolver ready in 
my right hand. The moments snailed slowly by — 
black within the cave, outside in the night, ghostly 
with moonlight and quietude. And all the while, 
as I paced now, an idea, born of desperation, ob- 
sessed me. 

If only I could return the Green, Green God 
that night, all might be well. I might forestall 
the Poonan — it might not yet be too late — and 
then we could live on, my wife and I, as King and 
Queen of the Poonan; as King and Queen of our 
paradise on earth! 

I halted beside the couch. Impulsively I 
grabbed up Golden Feather of Flame, caught her 
in my arms and kissed her passionately, again and 
again, upon the mouth. 

“ Wait for me here — I am going, my bride,” I 
said. “Alone and singlehanded, I am going to 
return the Green, Green God this night. Nda, 
nda! ” — as bravely she made to rise — “ you must 
not accompany me. You are too weak with fright 
and fear to accompany me, so weak that your 
presence would prove only a hindrance to me. 
And I cannot chance being hindered now, my 


280 THE STRANGE STORY 

bride. I must return the god this night. Per- 
haps it is not too late. Lip-Plak-Tengga never 
will think I will try again to-night. But I will! 

I will return the Green, Green God to-night 1 ” 

Yet did she cling to me, sobbing her fears for 
me, holding me back. Gently I freed myself, 
forced her down upon the couch, and caught up 
the rattan basket. She lay, now, with her face 
hidden in her arms, her whole form shaking with 
slow silent sobs. I put my revolver into her 
little hand and closed those dear fingers about the 
butt. 

“ I will return to you soon, my Golden Feather 
of Flame,” I said reassuringly; then grimly: “ But 
if they should come before I return, use that — use 
that, holding it as you have seen me hold it. Turn 
this long cold end away from you — so. Press with 
your first finger on this — this trigger. There will 
be a loud sound, a spit of flame, a jump all along 
your arm. But do not be frightened ; do not fear. 
That loud sound and all will scare them, if it does 
not kill them — one of them, anyway 1 ” 

I was out of the Elephant Cave then, leaving 
her alone in the dark. But I was not abandoning 
her — far from it 1 She would be, in this venture, 
not a help but a hindrance to me. And alone and 
singlehanded, I was making, then, a last and most 
desperate attempt to return the Green, Green God 
so that everything, once more, might be well. It 
was all up to me ! 

And this was no time now, to go a roundabout 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


281 


way, no time even to go skulking under the 
shadows of palms and growths. This was a tragic 
time, a most desperate time when that which I 
would do, I must do swiftly, boldly. I was a 
man alone, now, a white man. With the inevitable 
boldness of the white man in the face of over- 
whelming odds, full down the moon-lighted mid- 
dle of that Avenue of Palms toward the Stone 
Doho, I started running. 

No one stopped me. No sentry barred my way 
with the gaping muzzle of a long sumpitan; no 
Poonan ran ahead shouting an alarm into the 
night. Save the sound of my own quick footfalls, 
there was no sound at all in the night. 

And then the tattoo of my footfalls ceased, as 
I halted abruptly; for all of a sudden, as on a flut- 
ter of wind, a great sound had rolled to my ears. 
I stood now, suddenly tense and very still. And 
I looked ahead. 

Quite a distance ahead but plainly distinct in 
the open sweep of the avenue, the brightness of 
the moon, bulked the huge Stone Dobo, And it 
was lighted up now! It was glowing white with 
the incandescence of a thousand torches blazing 
inside, shining out through its innumerable slits 
and reflecting upon its white, white stone! 

I realized in a flash then. There could be but 
one meaning to all those torches. The Poonan 
were gathered within ! 

Even as I realized that, I noted a little black 
huddle of the Poonan clustered upon the top of 


282 THE STRANGE STORY 

that white cascade which was the Doho stairs. 
They were clustered about the arched doorway of 
that Doho like a swarm of flies about a treacle- 
barrel’s spigot. 

There was a vast multitude of the Poonan within 
the Doho, to judge from that; perhaps every 
man and woman in the Jallan Batoe; a multitude 
so very vast, in fact, that the Doho could not house 
them all, and so some, of necessity, had overflowed 
out upon that white cascade of stairs. 

They had gathered silently enough — like so 
many golden rats — those Poonan; but now that 
they were gathered, they no longer were so silent. 
That sound which first had halted me, was re- 
peated now in my ears. A ground-shaking swell 
of sound, it was, like the boom of an organ. But 
it was no boom of organ. It was the sound of 
men’s angry voices — a deep ominous menacing 
sound ! 

They had discovered, of course, that the Green, 
Green God was gone from the Doho. Old Mo- 
hong had told them, or maybe Lip-Plak-Tengga; 
but, either way, gathered as they now were in the 
Doho, they could see for themselves that the 
Green, Green God was gone from that Doho. 
And that was the meaning of the menacing swell 
of sound. They knew! 

Like a rush of blood to my head, an insane 
thought fired my brains. What if I should march 
boldly into that Doho, into that vast multitude, 
and return the god for all the world as though I, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 283 

as King and Man-Child, had the divine right to 
take and return it ! Of a certainty, I knew that if 
ever I could get up upon that lofty Nine-Times- 
Nine Throne, I could outface all the Poonan, 
prevail against them, dominate them — in the end, 
cause them all to cower and cringe before me 1 
But the trouble was I never could get into that 
Doho — let alone, up upon that lofty Throne — 
alive ! There were the Poonan upon the top of the 
stairs. They would not make way for me. They 
would pull the god from my hands, ere I got into 
that Doho. With a hundred hands, with that 
merciless brutality bred of awful fear, they would 
tear me to bits, pluck my limbs right out of me, 
mash me into repulsiveness, grind me under heel 
into a nothingness, unspeakable and vile! 

I turned around, and like one possessed, back 
the way I had come, I sped. Once I looked back. 
The Poonan were issuing from the doorway of 
that Doho. They were pouring down that cas- 
cade of stairs like flies down a stream of milk. 
And once at the bottom of those stairs they were 
swinging up the avenue. They were heading for 
the Elephant Cave. They were running ! 

I ran. Fear sped my legs. Fear of the Poonan. 
Fear for Belun-Mea Poa-Poa left alone in the 
darkness of the Elephant Cave. The Poonan had 
not seen me yet; perhaps I could reach that cave 
and Belun-Mea Poa-Poa ere they did see me. At 
the top of my legs, I ran. 

From the right-hand side of the avenue, alto- 


2 84 the strange STORY 

gether suddenly, came a low cry. I halted, with a 
sharp clutching of breath, and edged away. And 
then, from the shadow of one of the palm trees 
which lined that side of the avenue, the long .38 
glinting in her hand, came forth my own Golden 
Feather of Flame. 

I dropped that rattan basket into the softness 
of the grassy avenue, and in my arms I caught 
her as, with a little choking sob, she rushed to- 
ward me. 

“My wife!” I exclaimed. “You — ^you fol- 
lowed me ? ” 

“ I could not help it,” she sobbed. “ Oh, I 
could not help following you, Raj! I was afraid 
for you — afraid that they might come upon you 
and close about you, and I not be near to die 
with ” 

“ Hush, hush, my brave one 1 They are coming 
now. They know we have the God. They are 
coming to the Elephant Cave.” 

She gave a little frightened cry; then looking 
swiftly behind, even as I spoke, she saw them. 
They were like a black flood sweeping up the 
moon-bathed avenue; and like the muttering that 
comes from a swirling black flood, so there came 
from them, now, a continuous distance-dulled 
roar. 

She grasped my right hand bravely. 

“ Tung moolong!^* she breathed. “We must 
run for the tunnel, the outside I ” 

“But they will have it guarded!” I objected 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 285 

in a rush of apprehension. Lip-Plak-T eng g a — 

she will have it guarded ! ” 

“We do not know, we cannot know, we can 
only try ! There is no other way, Raj! In that 
way only is there hope. Before they come, we 
may reach that tunnel. They may not have 
thought to guard it. Come ! ” 

And she made to rush on. 

But I halted her to stoop down and pick up that 
rattan basket. 

“ My revenge! ” I cried. “ If ever we make 
that outer world — damme! — we’ll make it with 
the Green, Green God ! ” 

Like the far-away baying of hounds, came to 
me then, distinct upon a breathing of wind, the 
shouts of that mob. 

Hee-ah! Hee-ah!** the shouts came; and 
again: Hee-ahf Hee-ah!^^ 

That was the war-cry of the Poonan which 
echoes through interminable distances of windless 
air. And it was an exultant war-cry now. It was 
like the view-halloo of a fox-pack when the 
object of the chase is sighted. 

And the Poonan had sighted us! That was 
the reason for those exultant war-cries. Standing 
as we were, out in that moon-drenched stretch 
of avenue, the Poonan had sighted us ! 

But we stood there no longer. Hand in hand, 
onward up that avenue we ran and ran. 

We were running thus past the Elephant Stone 
when, of a sudden, I had an idea. 


286 


THE STRANGE STORY 


“This way!” I cried sharply, and frantically 
pulling Golden Feather of Flame by the hand, I 
drew her, stumbling and breathing quickly, to the 
foot of the left-hand stairs. 

But we did not mount those stairs. We went 
past those stairs. We went around and behind 
that Elephant Stone. 

I desired to throw the Poonan off the track. I 
wanted them to think we had entered the Ele- 
phant Cave. Burdened as I was with the Green, 
Green God and as was Golden Feather of Flame 
with that heavy revolver and the flapping folds 
of her silken robe, the Poonan were gaining con- 
siderably on us — gaining on us like a great strag- 
gling flood. But they had seen us, no doubt, dart 
from the avenue toward the Elephant Stone, and I 
hoped, now, that they would pause to search for 
us within that Elephant Stone. 

There was no waiting at that, you may be sure, 
to determine the success of the move. Leading 
Golden Feather of Flame by the hand, I made 
quickly through a brake of slender sugar-cane 
which hedged the Elephant Stone about on the left- 
hand side. And Golden Feather of Flame fol- 
lowed where I led, blindly, unquestioningly, obedi- 
ently. She trusted me, during that tragic time, as 
a child trusts someone it loves very much. 

At the rear of the Elephant Stone, we faced 
about toward the head of the crater or valley 
where, far above in the moon-silvered night, the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


287 

nearest lava wall of the crater slanted down from 
the sky like a great spill of ink. Hurriedly, hand 
in hand, we made, my wife and I, for that nearest 
lava wall. 

The way was now much like that roundabout 
way we had pursued, the night before, in our 
first attempt to return the Green, Green God. It 
lay between the rear of the stones that faced on the 
Avenue of Palms and the rear of the stones that 
faced on the Avenue of Camphor Trees. Only, 
this tragic time, we were not headed toward the 
Stone DohOj we were not trying to return the 
Green, Green God. We were headed, now, 
toward that sunken lava path and that tunnel 
through the wall of the crater; we were trying to 
win to the outer world with the Green, Green God 
and with our lives. 

From that brake of sugar-cane, we clambered 
over a rude fence of rattans and made through a 
broad patch spiked with the tall leaves of some 
form of tobacco. 

That tobacco bloomed white and very smelly 
in the night. Just beyond that tobacco patch we 
were moving quickly beneath the gigantic leaves 
of a walk of bananas when there burst upon our 
ears, once again, the cries of the Poonan. High 
and shrill cries, they were; eager, most eager 
cries. They were a clamor of cries like that which 
goes up from a fox-pack when they run the fox to 
hole. 

I comprehended, in a vivid flash, the reason 


288 


THE STRANGE STORY 


for those eager cries. The mob of Poonan 
had reached the Elephant Stone; They thought 
they had driven us to hole in that Elephant 
Stone. In that vivid flash of comprehension, 
I almost could see them crowding up both 
staircases, sweeping through the entrances, light- 
ing torches and searching the corridor and the 
huge cave-chamber within. 

But there was no time to lose. They would 
soon determine that we were not at bay in that 
Elephant Stone ; and right then would they realize 
that we were making a dash for the tunnel and the 
outside. We pressed on. 

We pressed on through an area waving with 
jungle maize ; then through a crudely scraped field 
upon the ruffled moon-lighted surface of which 
tiny seeds were sparkling like dewdrops; and then 
through a waste overgrown with cogon grass, 
taller than myself. 

That sunken lava path began, you remember, at 
the head of the Avenue of Palms and cut deeply 
through a rise of jungled ground. Well, it was 
after we had hurried through the waste of rustling 
cogon grass that we realized we had neared that 
rise of jungled ground. For, a little distance ahead 
of us then, rolled up a jungle of lush-growths and 
ferns, creepers and gigantean trees. 

We faced about, therefore, toward the Avenue 
of Palms to our right. Leaving the waste of tall 
cogon grass and skirting the edge of that jungle, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


289 

we sloshed almost knee-deep through a soggy rice 
paddy, and then through a thicket of low sago 
palms and opium poppies. We came out, at last, 
near the head of that Avenue of Palms. 

As we did, a myriad of shouts crashed upon 
our ears. They were the bellowing shouts of men 
angered at being outwitted. Looking back, down 
that moon-bathed stretch of avenue, a fleeting 
glance showed us the Poonan, sweeping out of 
either entrance of the Elephant Stone, dashing 
down the stairs, and surging and swirling around 
the base of that stone like so many hounds that 
had lost the scent of the quarry. 

They were aware, now, that we were not at 
bay in that Elephant Cave. In another moment, 
I knew, they would become aware that we were 
making a desperate attempt to reach that tunnel 
in the crater wall. And if we would win to that 
tunnel and the outside, with the Green, Green God 
and with our lives, of a surety, there was no time 
to lose. 

“ Here,” I said quickly to my wife. “ Take this 
basket and give me the revolver. They may over- 
take us before we reach that tunnel. If so. I’ll 
need the revolver.” 

She gave me the revolver without a word, and 
I gave her the rattan basket to carry. It was bur- 
dening her heavily, true ; but at that tragic time, it 
seemed necessary, well-nigh compulsory. I must 
have my hands free so that, if the need arose, I 
could fight for her; and of a certainty, both as 


THE STRANGE STORY 


290 

a gun and as a club, there was much that I could 
do with the .38. 

I snatched her free hand. Then up the avenue 
toward that rise of overgrown earth and that 
sunken lava path, I led the way at a terrific pace. 
And with all her strength, all her will and all her 
bravery, Golden Feather of Flame followed, 
breathing hard, but ever close at my side. 

We darted, in a trice, into that lava path be- 
tween its shoulder-high walls of earth. And all 
in that trice, from that mob of Poonan behind, 
rose a mad yell. 

Tung moolong!** it resounded through the 
crater. “ To the tunnel, to the tunnel! 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


291 


CHAPTER XXIX 

AND HOW HYDE AT LAST CAME 
TO CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THAT 
WHICH WAS ABROAD IN THE NIGHT 

Now, whether it was from the terror inspired 
by that inevitable discovery of the Poonan, or 
from the weight of the Green, Green God she car- 
ried, I do not know (continued Hyde) ; but on the 
sudden, as we turned a bend in that scooped-out 
path, and in so doing shut out all sight of that pur- 
suing mob. Golden Feather of Flame slipped 
weakly to her knees. 

I stopped and lifted her to her feet. With the 
action — just that quickly — I changed my mind 
about allowing her to burden herself with the 
Green, Green God. 

“ Give me the God! ” I said hurriedly. “ Give 
me the God, and Til carry both it and the gun.” 

Nda, nda!^' she cried bravely and as bravely 
started on again. “ I wish to carry the God. I 
have a reason, Raj. Let only me carry the God.” 

It was no time to question her about her mo- 
tives. I could hear that mob of Poonan, far be- 
hind but coming nearer; their sharp cries, their 
eager cries ; their cries so like the baying of hounds 
at the kill. We ran, hand in hand, along that 
deep-sunken lava path. 


292 THE STRANGE STORY 

And yet the feeling was mine, as my wife strug- 
gled courageously to keep up with me, that will- 
ingly she was carrying that heavy basket in order 
to help conserve my strength for that final struggle 
with the Poonan which, she must have thought, 
inevitably would come. It was a noble, self-sac- 
rificing motive, surely; and yet, had I but known 
it, how even more noble, how supremely more 
sacrificial was her real motive! 

But I did not know that then, of course. I only 
knew that with the cries of those Poonan winging 
louder to our ears, we were running, madly run- 
ning, along that lava path. 

To either side of our shoulders atop the banks 
of that lava path loomed, as we ran along, that 
tangled labyrinth of trees and lush-growths which 
I had noted when first I had entered the Jallan 
Batoe. And now, just as I had noted when first 
I had entered the Jallan Batoe, just so I noted 
quite suddenly, along the bank nearest to me, a 
movement in those growths. 

I kept my eyes upon that right-hand bank, as 
we ran along. And right along with us, it went — 
that movement in the growths. There was a 
swish from the ferns, a pull on a creeper where 
others close at hand were loose and still, and a 
swaying of branches here, then immediately 
ahead, and all to the soft accompaniment of rus- 
tling leaves and lianas. 

I could see no one. The moonbeams, striking 
straight down into the path, silvered those trees 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


293 

and growths; but still, so thick they were and so 
entangled that I could see no one. And yet, not 
three feet from our heads, running beside us with 
a swiftness marvelous in that network of huge 
roots and lush, there was, I knew, someone. For 
once I heard a twig snap as under the foot of 
some prowling animal, and once again a pebble, 
dislodged from the edge of the bank, rolled down 
with a gathering of earth to my very feet ! 

“ Some Poonan ! ” I thought in a kind of flurry. 
“ Some Poonan has caught up with us ! ” 

A pull on my arms caused me to remove my 
eyes from that right-hand bank and look around, 
hastily, at my wife. But she was not looking at 
that right-hand bank — the movement along that 
bank had stopped abruptly, anyhow, as if that 
prowler in the night had paused with us. She 
was looking straight ahead and her eyes were 
dilated as with some great and horrid surprise. 

I looked ahead. And ahead, gaping black in 
the moonlight, I saw the mouth of that tunnel 
which led through the rock and lava wall of the 
crater. And standing directly before that gaping 
black hole, the tawny bespotted leopard skin out- 
lining her feline form, I saw Lip-Plak-Tengga, 
the High Priestess! 

Even as I saw her, her slant eyes met mine 
with a flaming triumphant look. 

**Ahe!** she cried loudly. “Not the Man- 
Child, not our King, only a White Man! Only 


294 the strange STORY 

a White Man, striving to steal the Green, Green 
God, striving to save his cowardly neck! ’’ 

Her voice was so loud it was like a signal to 
that mob of Poonan behind us. And I felt thereat 
that she thought to stop us now — to stop us even 
at that threshold of our escape. I freshened my 
grip upon the revolver and, my body tensed, took 
a step forward toward her. 

“Out of my way!” I shouted boldly. “Out 
of my way, Lip-Plak-Tengga, You can never 
stop me now ! ” 

But that lone figure in the clinging leopard skin 
did not move. 

“ Only a White Man ! ” she cried out again. 
“ Not the Man-Child, not our King, only a White 
Man!” 

Sure then that her words were a signal, drag- 
ging Belun-Mea Poa~Poa by the hand, I leaped 
forward. 

“ Then on your own head, be it! ” I shouted 
madly, and I raised my revolver. 

But a sudden unaccountable move upon her part 
caused my finger to hesitate even as it tightened 
upon the trigger. For, altogether suddenly, she 
outstretched both hands toward the right-hand 
bank and pleadingly, yet shrilly, she called: 

“Man! Man!” 

Only there was this difference: She called the 
Poonan word for man — Orang! Orang !” — 
and from that, and that alone, I should have 
known what manner of man she was calling. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 295 

But I did not know. I swung round. A tre- 
mendous crackling and rending of growths came 
from behind and above me. I knew that someone 
on the right-hand bank was breaking a way 
through. And then I heard a cry from my wife, 
a terrible cry: 

“ The Monster Man ! It’s the Monster Man 1 ” 
And she tore her hand from my hand and, the 
Green, Green God in her arms, clutched to her 
fear-chilled breasts, she went running back along 
the sunken path — back the very way we had come I 

“ I return the God ! ” she cried. “ Look, Lip- 
Plak-Tengga — I return the God! Spare us! Oh, 
spare us ! Spare us — from the Monster Man ! ” 

I started after her, calling her back. 

“ Stop ! ” I shouted, shocked, almost unbeliev- 
ing. “ Stop, or everything is lost! ” 

But she continued on, continued running back 
into the Jallan Batoe. She knew. Everything 
was lost! 

And now I knew. For now in the path before 
me, between Belun-Mea Poa-Poa and me, uprose 
on his huge legs to dispute that path with me — the 
Monster Man! He had leaped down from that 
right-hand bank. And he was a Monster Man! 
But not a negro, not a monstrosity of a black. 
He was a Man of the Jungle, a huge Orang- 
Outang ^ a gigantic colossal Ape! 

Upreared upon his short, huge and hairy legs, 
he stood facing me, full in the center of that path 
and full in the moonlight. I could see him plainly 


THE STRANGE STORY 


296 

— his little round eyes glittering snakily from 
under bushy brows, his head rolling on a thick 
neck from side to side, and his whole immense 
body a dull smear of shaggy hair, black as a 
negro’s skin. 

On his body that shaggy hair was fully, in each 
separate black strand, a foot long; but on his 
head, the hair was no more than three inches 
long; while on his face, save for the bushy brows, 
there was no hair at all. His face, a simous 
smudge, was bare of hair, his prognathous chin 
beardless ; his was almost a negro’s face. And his 
head, undeveloped with brains, was small, as I 
said, dwarfed for so large a body. For his body 
was three times, in depth and breadth, the size of 
a man’s body. 

Over seven feet tall he was, and five feet wide, 
and three feet, no less, from back to front. His 
long heavy-thewed hairy arms hung down from 
his high bulging shoulders, below the knees, right 
to his ankles. With his ham-like paws, he could 
touch and sweep the lava floor of the path. And 
his chest, between those six-foot-long arms, was 
stupendous with hair and with depth and round- 
ness. He was enormous. He must have weighed, 
all in all, close to a thousand pounds — fully half a 
ton. 

I never saw an ape like that Monster Man. I 
never heard of one just like that one. The Orang 
BenuUj or headhunters of the interior of Borneo, 
have legends of Jungle Men seven feet tall; but 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 297 

nobody ever has seen apes seven feet tall; and 
yet — yet here was I facing an ape that was over 
seven feet tall! He was seven feet, four inches 
tall at the least. Never had I heard of, let alone 
seen, his like. He was a frightful monstrosity of 
hugeness. 

I halted dead. I faced that monstrous brute 
without a tail, with no hair on his palms, with ears 
and eyes and nose so like a man’s. My heart 
thudding against my chest like terrible hammer- 
strokes, my hand sweating and shaking, quickly, 
almost unconsciously, I raised my revolver and 
full at that vast black bulk of brute, I fired. 

I plugged him in the chest. But what of the 
preposterous vastness, the tremendous vitality of 
his bulk, that was no vulnerable spot I had not 
wounded him mortally. I had only filled him with 
sudden pain. He swayed toward me. His great 
soft-palmed hands went to his reddening chest. 
And from between his crunching teeth — in form 
and number just like a man’s — he emitted a single 
scream, a horrible scream, an almost human 
scream. It was a scream like the scream of a 
man in pain; and there is nothing so horrible as 
the scream of a man in pain. 

I leaped back, pressing my finger on the trigger 
of that revolver. 

Screaming and rocking from side to side, one 
long-armed hand tearing leaves from the bank 
and attempting to stuff them in the wound as if 
to stop the flow of blood, the other reaching out. 


298 THE STRANGE STORY 

its long fingers working and griping like some 
enormous pincers, he lurched — an ungainly vast 
black bulk — toward me. 

I fired a second time. Then, ere I could leap 
back, ere I could shoot again, I was in those 
long, muscled, hairy arms. 

With those six-foot-long arms, those soft- 
palmed long-fingered hands, he clutched my arms. 
He clutched my arms as though he would tear 
bodily my biceps from my arms. He swept me 
slap up against his vast hairy bulk of body. He 
hugged me against his vatlike blood-besmeared 
chest. 

With a snap like the snap of a breaking twig, 
my right arm broke, in that viselike hug, at the 
forearm. A sharp spasm of pain shot through 
that broken arm; and the revolver to which I had 
held with such desperate tenacity, even when he 
first had gripped my arms, fell to the lava floor. 

I tried to cry out. But I could not cry out. I 
could not even breathe. And yet I heard, in that 
awful moment, an echoing exultant “ Hee-ah ! 
Hee-ah ! ’’ from the Poonan sweeping into the 
path; and I knew, then, that they had got my 
wife, my Golden Feather of Flame! I caught, 
amid the echoes of that war-cry but nearer hand, 
the low mirthless laugh of a woman — the laugh 
I had come to know so well — the laugh of Lip- 
PlahTengga! 

And then that indescribable monster gripped 
me about the middle and his strong sinewy hands 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


299 

sunk into my flesh just above the hips. The balls 
and long nails of his thumbs reached back almost 
to my spine ; the balls and long nails of his fingers 
reached around to the pit of my stomach; and 
those incredibly long fingers griped the fleshy soft- 
ness of my abdomen, tight, terrifically tight, like 
the steel fingers of some powerful pincers. It was 
torture. 

You have seen the marks left on my body by 
his horrible hands. They are old ragged scars 
now, weathered by many suns; but still they are 
deeper than the pit of my umbilicus; and for years 
they were agonizing wounds. 

It was torture, I tell you. Those fingers of him 
cut through my skin, through my flesh, as though 
my skin and flesh were the skin and flesh of a 
soft peach. I felt he was plucking my nerves right 
out of my middle, crunching my bones together 
beneath his griping fingers — slowly, relentlessly 
disemboweling me — squeezing my entrails out 
through my torn belly as though my torn belly 
were the torn belly of a frog ! It was torture un- 
endurable. I screamed to heaven in unutterable 
agony. 

That scream must have shocked, if it did not 
frighten him. For, on the sudden, he hurled me 
from him, just as I myself would hurl a rag doll. 
His six-foot-long arms acting as two tremendous 
springs, bodily through the air he hurled me. And 
my broken right arm flapping about me like a 
reed, my torn middle downpouring blood over my 


THE STRANGE STORY 


300 

legs and torso, twenty feet and more through the 
air I went, clutching space with my left hand, 
turning head over heels, twisting and screaming. 

Full upon my face upon the hard lava floor of 
that path, I fell. And with that shattering of my 
head against the floor, that excruciating pain from 
my lacerated and bleeding middle, I went out. I 
went out; yet as I slipped into unconsciousness, 
a terrible joy was mine that the unspeakable tor- 
ture of it all, at last, was ended. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


301 


CHAPTER XXX 

OF WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE 

The steady drip-drip of water upon my up- 
turned face drew me, at length and slowly, up, up 
out of the black abyss of Death (said Hyde). 
How long later it was, I know not. I was in- 
credibly weak with loss of blood. I was too weak 
to move, too weak to open the heavy lids of my 
eyes, too weak even to roll my head out of that 
irritating drip of water which fell from the moist 
foliage overhead. 

And yet, as I lay there and that steady drip- 
drip of water slowly revived me, consciousness of 
certain things about me crept, in a sort of sequence, 
into my numbly throbbing brains. I became 
aware, for one thing, that I no longer was lying 
upon the hardness of the lava floor of that sunken 
path. Beneath me and about me I could feel the 
softness, the wetness of lush. And breathing 
faintly into my ears was the constant whisper of 
rustling foliage. 

I opened my eyes. But only the heavy upward 
roll of my lids, the conscious knowledge that I 
really had made the action, told me that I had 
opened my eyes. For near and far away, all was 
blackness. I could see no scared-looking moon 
in the sky; I could see no sky, no thing that 


THE STRANGE STORY 


302 

was about me, not even that broken arm which 
throbbed painfully at my torn and now sluggishly 
bleeding side. It was as black about me as though 
a tropical storm were afoot. 

Still, for all that, I knew where I was. I had 
sensed where I was when I had felt no longer that 
hard lava path beneath me, when first I had heard 
that rustle of the moisture-dripping foliage. I 
was no longer in the Jallan Batoe. I was on the 
jungled mountain-slope of the Jallan Batoe. I was 
Outside! Yet how I had come there, why the 
Poonan had not killed me, while I lay completely 
at their mercy in that sunken lava path — these 
were marvels I could not explain. 

And then came to my ears, as I lay there, a 
strange far-off murmur in the unseen sky. It 
neared; it rose into a hum; and, a tremendous 
squall, it tore through the overgrowth of jungle. 
Trees shook their long arms, scraped them wildly 
together, and bent back and forward, almost 
sweeping the ground; and branches and long 
leaves, heavy cocoanuts and durian oranges, flayed 
from those trees, came thudding about me, went 
shooting on and on through space with such ter- 
rific velocity that, if they struck, they would brain 
a man. 

Thunder boomed through the world and, on 
the heels of it, came the lightning. It split open 
the black bowl of sky, ripped through the thick 
plash of foliage overhead and electrified that foli- 
age with green and gold and black. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


303 

I made out, in those zigzags of lightning, a 
gigantean tree, uprooted, lying flat upon the moun- 
tain-side and overgrown with noxious growths. 
Somehow, on hands and knees, I crawled toward 
it. With my good left hand, I tore a way beneath 
those growths. A tropical storm was indeed 
afoot. I snuggled, prone, beneath those growths 
and against that trunk of tree for protection from 
that tropical storm. 

And then came the rain — a black vomit from 
the heavens which fell steadily, unceasingly, with 
a great hollow booming sound, with an immense 
brooding patience and persistency. The black 
bowl of sky gushed water as though those jagged 
swords of lightning had, indeed, cleft it in twain; 
the torn and stripped overgrowth of jungle 
dripped like a sieve; and the tree trunk beside 
me, even the febrile growths above and about, 
turned damp, soggy. The very earth ran in 
rivulets, in washouts, from beneath me. 

So through the blackness, as squall after squall 
struck the mountain-side, shattering with hum and 
din that monotonous booming of the rain, tearing 
asunder the overgrowth, ripping up massive trees 
by their huge roots and seemingly shaking the 
whole round world, I lay under the wet growths 
beside that soggy tree, sinking into the jellied earth, 
wetted through and through. Only once did I 
move. I scooped up the black mud beneath me and 
plastered it about my waist, thus roughly poultic- 
ing my lacerated middle and stopping the bleeding. 


THE STRANGE STORY 


304 

When the gray light of dawn was seeping 
through the wide gaps in that torn arcade over- 
head, the squalls ceased, though the rain still con- 
tinued to downpour with that great hollow boom- 
ing. Stiff and pain-racked and thoroughly soaked 
I was then, yet I thought only to appease the gnaw- 
ings of my famished stomach. I crawled out, 
picked up an almost green durian orange and, be- 
cause I had no knife and was unable to burst its 
thick coat with one hand, I broke that thick coat 
by dint of a deal of hammering against that soggy 
trunk of tree. Then, amid all that drip and boom 
of the rain, I ate. 

That strengthened me. I got afoot. Stum- 
bling and sometimes falling, but always, somehow, 
picking myself up and doggedly going on, I made 
through that dripping chaos of growths down the 
slant of the slope. And I only hoped that I could 
make some camp of men — orchid-hunters, big- 
game-trappers, explorers or whatnot — or even the 
old deserted camp where I had parted from my 
Dyak boys. If my boys only had left a tarpaulin 
or blanket behind them, I knew I could improvise 
some sort of temporary shelter against the rain. 

I do not know how long it was that I wandered. 
My head felt light from the loss of blood and 
everything seemed whirling round and round. I 
fervently hoped that I would not walk round and 
round in a circle, as I have known men, alone and 
lost in jungles, to have done. But that slant of the 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


305 

slope pointed the way for me ; it sloped down, ever 
down. I followed it blindly, stupidly. 

Quite suddenly, it seemed, I made out about me 
what appeared to be a vast circle of dancing lights. 
I knew it was only one light; with the lightness and 
whirling of my brains, my eyes were seeing things 
not only double, but a hundredfold. I made to- 
ward one light in that circle of lights. Amid all 
that brooding boom of the rain, I shouted madly 
for assistance. 

There was no answer. But I did not pause. 
Frenziedly breaking through dripping creepers 
and growths and over overthrown trees, I stumbled 
upon a fire blazing under the protection of a 
framework of hilian stakes and a roof of bark. 
To either side were little shelter tents, brown and 
small and exactly like the shelter tents used by 
armies. I could swear that there was, on those 
shelter tents, the black-painted name of Willyum 
Hyde! 

But I was not sure. With the insane hope surg- 
ing in my breast that I had stumbled upon my own 
camp, I called and called again. At last, from 
one of the little tents, an ear-ringed Dyak boy 
looked out. He was one of my own Christian 
boys, surely enough; but at sight of me, torn and 
mangled and muddied, and standing out there in 
the rain, he threw up his hands in terror and 
ducked back behind the flap of the tent. 

“ Come on out, you fool I ” I shouted, though 
I suppose my voice was little better than a sob. 


3o 6 TkE STRANGE STORY 

“ Fm no bad antu of the Poonan, no damned 
Green, Green God. Fm only Willyum Hyde, 
Willyum Hyde. Fm only Willyum Hyde who has 
lost his bride — his all — his Golden Feather of 
Flame . . . ! ” And my voice trailing off weakly, 
I pitched forward, almost upon the lire; and I 
lay there weeping as only a man weeps when his 
nerve and strength are gone and help is at hand, 
at last. 

When I came again to a knowledge of myself, I 
found I was in one of the shelter tents, lying 
between warm blankets upon a bed of dry leaves. 
My broken forearm was set in two clever splints, 
my waist was constrained in bandages that were 
as a corset for stiffness and tightness, and there 
was a bandage about my head. And darting in 
and out of the tent, hovering solicitously about me, 
were the three Christian Dyak boys with whom I 
had come “ in ” for Coelogyne Lowii, the 
“ Flower of Mercy of Borneo. It all seemed a 
dream. 

But it was no dream. I had stumbled upon my 
own camp for a surety and, also, for the very 
good reason that the boys had awaited me there. 
They said they knew I never would be able to get 
inside the Jallan Batoe. And when I told them 
that I had been inside the Jallan Batoe, they only 
shook energetically their dangling ear-rings. 

Nda, nda!” they said; then added, as though 
that was proof conclusive: “ You were gone only 
four days, tuanJ* 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


307 

“ Yes,” I agreed; “ and for three of those four 
days, your master was in the Jallan Batoe. Or 
rather^ I was in the Jallan Batoe three nights and 
two days.” 

But they would not believe me ; they only care- 
fully scrutinized that bandage on my head; and, 
indeed, I did not blame them so much for doubt- 
ing me. I myself could hardly believe that all that 
had happened to me, had happened to me in so 
short a space as two days and three nights. 

“ Your head has been wandering away from 
your body, tuan*^ they finally told me. ” For a 
week, ever since the night you stumbled into camp, 
you have been talking, master, of strange things.” 

“ What! ” And I sat up. “ Have I been here 
a week? ” 

They nodded so vehemently that the fringes of 
black hair upon their low foreheads leaped up 
and down as in a dance. 

“ But — but that thudding against the tent, that 
booming in the air — is that still the rain? ” 

Again they nodded. For a week, unceasingly, it 
had been raining, they said. And it continued to 
rain, ceaselessly, with that great hollow booming, 
for weeks, for what seemed to me an endless 
time — a whole month — the while I lay in that 
tent and convalesced. 

Once I asked them what they had done with my 
hickory shirt. They brought it to me. When I 
looked at the collar of that shirt, I found upon it 
the blood-prints of a hand. I compared those 


3o8 the strange STORY 

prints, when they were rebandaging my waist, 
with those red open wounds in my flesh. They 
were the same. 

I knew then. The Poonan did not know what 
had happened to me; only Lip-Plak-Tengga and, 
perhaps, my own Golden Feather of Flame knew 
what had happened to me ; for none of the Poonan 
had seen me lying, as good as dead, upon that 
sunken lava path. The High Priestess had 
pointed the way, no doubt, and that Monster Man 
had dragged me, by the collar of my hickory shirt, 
out through that tunnel to the jungle outside. For 
the marks upon my body and upon the collar of 
that hickory shirt were the same. They were the 
marks of the blood-besmeared, long-fingered, 
enormous hands of the Monster Man. My life 
had been spared by Lip-Plak-Tengga. She had 
loved me — yes. 

At the end of a month, the rain ceased and, my 
arm having knitted, I prevailed upon my Dyak 
boys, after a deal of cajoling, to climb up that 
dripping overgrown slope. But no tunnel re- 
mained. The squalls and heavy downpour of the 
last month had caused an avalanche down the 
slope, which had broken in the rock roof of the 
entrance to that tunnel, and had packed before 
it a solid wall of matted growths, sodden 
earth and huge uprooted trees. We started dig- 
ging at that wall; but the rainy season was on us 
then, and a week later we had to quit work. 

With the orchids I already had plucked from 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


309 

the dark jungle, ere I went into the Jallan Batoe, 
and which my Dyak boys had carefully nurtured 
and kept for me, I loaded down the gobang. We 
paddled then, along the Loeang, into the Barito, 
and so down that river to Banjermasin. There, 
at Banjermasin, with the money realized from 
those orchids, I chartered and provisioned a large 
tambangan, hired a crew of twelve Tring Dyak 
boys — instead of my former three — and went 
“ in ” again. 

I found, on the spot where I last had camped, 
a water-^/?or or waterhole, from which a small 
stream ran down into the Loeang. I knew there- 
upon that the river from the Jallan Batoe, dammed 
up by that choked tunnel, had wormed a way 
underground and here, at last, had spouted to the 
surface. When we reached that caved-in and 
choked tunnel, the digging we had done some 
months before, was entirely obliterated, and the 
place was only the more stuffed with avalanched 
earth, and overgrown by lush. 

We built shelters against the rain and started 
to work. We cleared off the lush. We were 
quite fifteen feet in, bolstering up the roof as we 
went along with stout bilian stakes and heavy 
bark when, one day, that roof caved in, killing 
three of the boys. The rest of the crew would not 
work there, after that. They said that the Green, 
Green God of the Poonan did not countenance 
such work and so was invoking evil upon them. 
Much against my will, I had to come “ out.” 


THE STRANGE STORY 


310 

My money was gone then, but I did not give 
up. I borrowed some more money from a rich 
Chinese /0^0-keeper of Banjermasin, with whom I 
formerly had traded, and used that money to out- 
fit another expedition. But when, some months 
later, we got to the volcano of the Jallan Batoe, 

I could not find the spot where that tunnel had 
been. 

It appeared that, what with tropical storms and 
the tremendous fecundity of the jungle, that spot 
where the tunnel had been, had so changed its 
physical appearance and become so overwhelmed 
by trees and lush-growths, since I last had been 
there, that there was now no way to differentiate it 
from the physical appearance and trees and lush- 
growths of the rest of the jungled slope. 

Nothing daunted, however, we tried to climb 
the steep sheer barren cliffs of the crater. But 
above the forest line, the volcano slope was lava 
— lava cliffs straight up and down, lava cliffs 
smooth as glass. To climb those cliffs was utterly 
impossible. Once more, I was forced to come 
“ out.” 

But I did not go back to orchid-hunting. I 
wanted to forget. I wanted to go away from the 
jungle with its rich warm colors and its rustling 
little sounds that forever reminded me of the Jal- 
lan Batoe and of my Golden Feather of Flame. I 
wanted to go away from Borneo, to go away from 
everything that whispered to me of the old sweet 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


311 

life — those tremulous moments of love, lost for- 
ever, never to be regained. 

Now, every two years or so, I make enough on 
the shell-and-pea game to go back and make an- 
other forlorn try. Between tries, I wander the 
world, striving to forget. I walk the beaches. 
I am only another broken man of the Sea Islands, 
reduced to a vagabond’s straits and shifts, bedding 
down wherever the dark comes upon me. But in 
the crimson dawns and in the golden sunsets there 
is ever a voice calling to me — calling, calling, call- 
ing — calling always to me to come back to her, 
my own Golden Feather of Flame. 


312 


THE STRANGE STORY 


CHAPTER XXXI 

IN WHICH EVERYTHING ENDS IN THE 
FO’C’S’LE, WHEN WE LEARN THE 
REASON FOR MOGUL, THE PARROT 

Hyde ceased speaking and, his red-bearded face 
transfigured with an expectant ecstatic look, stared 
across the fo’c’s’le, stared past me with unseeing 
eyes, as though he heard, indeed, his beautiful 
lost bride calling to him from beyond the years 
and from beyond the long leagues of sea. 

And then, suddenly and sharply and wholly un- 
expectedly, from the bunk behind me as I, Colum 
Kildare, sat facing Hyde, a voice said: 

“But what happened to her? Where is she 
now, your Golden Feather of Flame ? ” 

It was the voice of Fitzhamon — the shaken, the 
overwrought voice of Fitzhamon. He had been 
wide awake and listening a long time, it seemed. 
And he leaned, now, far out from the bunk be- 
hind me, his body upraised on his arms, his band- 
aged curl-crop of head craning forward over my 
right shoulder, and his gray somber eyes on Hyde. 

I looked over at the great bulk and red head 
that was William Hyde. He had slumped alto- 
gether in a heap so that he seemed not half so 
huge nor so columnar. And morosely his head 
was lowered upon his hands. But, of a sudden. 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 313 

he raised his head and showed a face to us that 
was the lined, careworn face of one damned to 
bitterness and to despair. And he looked steadily 
at us with terrible eyes, and he whispered: 

“ Aye, where is she now, my Golden Feather of 
Flame ! Where is she now, while I wander the 
world and have only the memories of my beautiful 
loved one, and of my triumph and my downfall? 
Is she dead, my Belun~Mea Poa-Poa — dead, or a 
slave to the Poonan? 

“I do not know. I only know that she ran 
right back into the arms of those Poonan; and I 
know, full well, that she was sacrificing herself 
for me, trying to run back with the Green, Green 
God; but all too late, too late! The Poonan then 
were not in any mood to show her mercy. I know 
those Poonan, I tell you. I know what they did, 
those accursed Golden Rats! They snatched the 
god from her hands and in their anger, their 
fanatical hate, they tore her to pieces — she that 
had been their beloved Queen ! 

“ Or perhaps not that. Perhaps they held her 
prisoner and tortured her beautiful body — slowly, 
remorselessly — tortured her until at last she died 
sobbing her unshaken love for me! 

“ The heart is clean gone out of me. I am 
haunted day and night by those two visions. But 
there is a vision more horrible than either of those 
two visions; a vision that repeatedly I have seen 
in the dark nights — a horrible vision that sends 
me screaming out of my sleep, and leaves me shiv- 


THE STRANGE STORY 


314 

ering and cold with icy sweat. For I see her 
abandoned and forsaken, and yet living on — living 
on among those Poonan who hate and torture her 
— and living on, and suffering pain and anguish 
of soul each hour of the day and night while I, 
Willyum Hyde, whom she loves and for whom she 
waits, cannot return to her.” 

For a long time after that Hyde remained 
bowed and silent. Fitzhamon said nothing; I 
said nothing; and William Hyde looked not at 
us, but only beyond us into his own sweet and 
bitter memories. We held sacred the moment and 
did not break in upon his thoughts. 

And then, after a while, the shell-and-pea man 
pulled himself together, shaking his shoulders, 
with the parrot thereupon, like a man that wakes 
from a dream. Only by a slight working of the 
lips, as he strove for self-control, and a strained 
timbre of the voice, did he give any sign now of 
his inward suffering. He spoke on as though 
there had been no interruption at all and we had 
not been shown, naked and quivering, his de- 
feated, despairing soul: 

“ Pm going back now, and Fm going back alone. 
The dark hot places of the earth are hard on a 
man alone, but Fm going back into the Borneo 
jungle without companions; for this is my last 
try and, someway, somehow, this last try, Fm 
going to win into the Jallan Batoe, or die trek- 
king about on the outer slopes. On such a for- 
lorn desperate hope, I know, no man will go 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 315 

with me; so Fll go back alone this time — alone, 
yes, except for the parrot.” 

He lifted, with the words, that green bird off 
his shoulder; and Mogul, startled from his sleep, 
blinked his red eyes excitedly and clung, quite 
desperately, with one foot to Hyde’s extended in- 
dex finger. 

“Yes; he’s going with me when I go ‘in’ — 
Mogul the parrot, my old faithful bunkie. The 
Poonan never have seen a live parrot, remember. 
No; nor a cockatoo, parrakeet, red lory or any 
other species of parrot. There is no kind of par- 
rot in the Jallan Batoe, as I once said, save and 
excepting only that dead shimmering stone of an 
accursed Emerald Parrot. And Mogul here is just 
like that Emerald Parrot — all green, jungle green. 

“ Into the Jallan Batoe, I’ll come with Mogul 
upon my shoulder. He’ll strike terror into the 
Poonan, that old beachcomber of a bird. They’ll 
think he’s the twin brother of the Green, Green 
God, and maybe, a more powerful bird, a more 
dreadful god. Sight of him perched upon my 
shoulder may fill them with that old-time awe of 
me; they’ll bow down to me; and all once again 
may be as it was. And upon the Nine-Times- 
Nine Throne, as King and Queen of the Poonan, 
we’ll sit once more, perhaps — Belun-^Mea Poa-Poa 
and Willyum Hyde ! ” 

Hyde placed the parrot back upon his shoulder, 
the while I got up upon the edge of the bunk and 
turned out the light in that swing slush-lamp over- 


3i6 the strange STORY 

head. Outside, the peeping sun already was ting- 
ing with crimson the gray swale of the dawn ; and 
inside, in the fo’c’s’le, a single hesitant shaft was 
stealing through the hatchway above the ladder. 
And noticing that, Hyde said, as I stepped down : 

“ I think I’ll go above and watch the sun break 
through the silver of the sky. I always watch 
the coming of the sun. Sometimes I’ve seen her 
there, in all that silver and gold; and she seems 
to have her arms out for me, and she seems not 
so very far away, only a few steps across the 
water.” And he went above, up the ladder, to 
watch the sunrise and to think his thoughts. 

Fitzhamon and I talked, after that, for a full 
half hour; we talked of William Hyde; and then, 
much against Fitzhamon’s advice, I went above to 
offer to go with Hyde into the Jallan Batoe. 

But, on the deck above, there was no William 
Hyde. Some time before he had dropped over- 
side and, just as he had swum out to the ship, the 
parrot wheeling above his red head, so he had 
swum back to the shore and made the beach, the 
parrot settling cozily down once again upon his 
saffron shoulder. They were early astir and al- 
ready started on the long walk along the beach to 
the next nameless Kanaka town. They were gone, 
gone utterly, he and the parrot. 

Everywhere, since then, among all the South 
Islands, I have looked for William Hyde. But he 
no longer walks the burning beaches; he is gone 
from the islands. He has gone back to Borneo, 


OF WILLIAM HYDE 


317 

I suppose — ^back to the jungles and the Jallan 
Batoe. The voice of Golden Feather of Flame 
has called him and, allured and irresistibly com- 
pelled, he has heeded, at last, that call. 

But if he has tried to enter, once again, that 
Forbidden City of the Poonan, I fear me he is lost 
forever. I fear me he is dead there within, in that 
beautiful terrible place — dead, but with lips that 
smile even in death. For his lost love’s arms are 
about him, perhaps, and they are together, at last, 
and happy, though in death. . . . Ah, we will 
wish it so! 

And so I fear me I shall never see William 
Hyde again; never again see the shell-and-pea 
man in the flesh; never again see my red- 
headed white man of the beaches as first I saw 
him in Honolulu — a huge monolith of a man with 
hair red as blood, his waist deeply pitted by the 
scars from two enormous long-fingered hands, his 
shoulder a perch for a red-eyed parrot, green as 
the wetness of jungle, and his mouth open in the 
depths of that red dog-collar of beard and sing- 
songing, now and anon: 

“ Went Jallan Batoe. Went round and round 
and up the Barito to the Jallan Batoe. And then 
some, then some, bee-lieve me 1 Saw the red, red 
rubies in the Robe of Holies. In the Jallan Batoe. 
Saw the rubies and the diamonds and the pearls 
and the emeralds in the Jallan Batoe. And the 
God, the Green, Green God! And then some, 
bee-lieve me — cluck, cluck! ” 



396 92 




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